New! The Source Assistant

Started by Cynthia Curtis, A183502, US7875087 on Thursday, October 27, 2022
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Not sure I like it... Anyone?

It "adds" "New" information but this is likely no better than the hints seen elsewhere and takes a human to discern but the tool makes it TOO easy to add JUNK.
Too late to say NO?

I would say that I like it, but there is some issues:
New profiles created in English, but for others languages it creates a problems
Crazy Private profiles even from MyHeritage trees where I'm member, it's so annoing..
So yes, it's easy way to add junk and break the profiles

Yes; I think it will make the curators even more busy and the pros responsible for a lot of disconnecting and is likely being done the same reason as Gedcom uploads are permitted.

I agree with you Cynthia.

The result will be lots of degradation of Profiles on Geni.

If Geni came anywhere close to believing their own hype about the quality of profiles on Geni, they would never set them up to be so easily changed to match lesser quality ones.

Quantity vs Quality
*sigh

I agree it feels a bit dangerous and a high risk that Smart Match trees will be just copied through the Source Assistant by Geni users who don't do the research themselves and just copy other trees from other services without knowing if they are correct or not. Record Matches mostly include correct data (although sometimes incorrectly interpreted, e.g. grandchildren as children), but Smart Matches can lead to incorrect trees with incorrect relatives. I would never copy Smart Match info without doing the research in the primary sources first.

Another issue: I see "Only the user who confirmed the match will see the Source Assistant notification" in the Geni blog. Why is this? Most of my Source Assistant "issues" were for inlaws. They were shown for me just because I confirmed smart matches of my third cousin once removed's husband (and similar). I confirmed the match of him because it's within my family group and I saw the match was correct. That doesn't mean I want to continue researching my third cousin once removed's husband's parents' family for months or years. Therefore I needed to choose "ignore" on the Source Assistant "issues" - not because they are wrong (I actually don't know if they are right or wrong) but because they aren't interesting for me and I don't want to see them anymore (they would prevent me from seeing more interesting issues). However my fourth cousins in this branch who have blood relatives going through the Source Assistant issues may potentially be interested in the future, but they will never see them.

I haven't decided how extensively (or not) I should use this feature, Nevertheless, I how have a backlog of over 1300 sources to wade through.

Niclas Carlenius;

I have been faced with a similar issue for many years now. When I am shown a smart match for an in-law in my matches tab, my solution has been to use Smart Copy to copy over the in-law and any data that I want, but I neither approve nor reject the match. That leaves the match still there for other interested people to see. There is an option in the matches tab to remove the match from your view, so as not to be constantly shown the same match. But this option does not prevent otheres from seeing it.

With Smart Assistant, I think you have the option of ignoring the match by clicking on the "x" in the upper right-hand corner. I haven't tried it yet, but it should make the match disappear from you list of outstanding issues, but the source will remain with the profile to be used by others.

Cynthia Curtis, A183502, US7875087 Source assistant only uses record sources not smart matches, so what "junk" are you referring to?

Jason Scott Wills - I did a Screen Shot of what Geni showed us -- so I can clearly see it said "Introducing the Source Assistant - a quick and easy way to extract information from your confirmed Record Matches and Smart Matches to the family tree on Geni"

So - why are you saying it "only uses record sources not smart matches"?

The Blog also says both. "Today we are excited to announce the release of the Source Assistant – a quick and easy way to extract information from your confirmed Record Matches and Smart Matches™ from MyHeritage to the family tree on Geni. Now when you confirm a Record Match or a Smart Match™, you can quickly add new or updated information from the MyHeritage match to your relatives’ Geni profiles with just a few clicks. "
That is at:
https://www.geni.com/blog/introducing-the-source-assistant-109549.html

I never, ever confirm Smart Matches or Record Matches, so I guess I will not have tp worry about any suggestions that I use the Source Assistant.
But it is still going to affect me.

I’ve been testing for a while, and I pretty much love it. I can’t use SmartCopy on iPad, so this is a good substitute. I’ll never get through the backlog, any more than I can inconsistencies. But that’s OK.

What is defined as a record is set my MyHeritage, not Geni. So some “records” I would think of as “trees” are included in the data set. Unfortunately.

The utility is similar to what Ancestry has on offer, but “fortunately!” it’s much more thoughtful in approach. You can confirm each data point one at a time.

My big concern has been to only “copy across” missing data I can see in a source, and it’s letting me do this.

In my areas of the tree there shouldn’t be many whole families to copy across, and it’s letting me do this. I want the odd missing child, and it’s perfect for this.

Do it slowly and carefully, as one should with any data extraction tool.

Erica - I totally trust you to use it responsibly, and am glad you are finding it helpful.
I fear once enough folks start using it that it may well generate more work for you cleaning up messes and refereeing, but do enjoy it while you can, and may my fears never come to pass.

Gedcoms are worse, especially the older ones which dumped data in the “about.”

And, since we need subscriptions to even see the source, we should be able to hold each other accountable better. Instead of “where does this even come from.”

Please be careful if you use it. There are still some problems on the MH side (hopefully this will be fixed soon)

  • If you extract birth data for a bride from a marriage records you will probably get the data for the groom.
  • if there is a birth record for a child that is visible on the father, you will be offered to put that data for the child to the father

For Swedish househould examination books on ArkivDigital through the record matches on MyHeritage families often include a father, a mother and children. Some of the children may be children of the father but not of the mother or vice versa. There are usually strange abbreviations for that like "h u ä" (his or hers outside of marriage) or "h f ä" (his or hers before marriage), which aren't considered properly by the Source Assistant. Mostly the Source Assistant ignores the detailed abbreviations and considers all children as children of both parents. Therefore it suggests to incorrectly add children to the father even if I have already included them correctly as children of the mother and her previous partner(s). If I would do that, I would create duplicates as half siblings of themselves.

Just be careful. Correct sources can be incorrectly interpreted, resulting in wrong suggestions.

Niclas Carlenius that is the sort of thing that happens when one uses SmartCopy to add or update and the target is often duplicated or altered if the “source” does not have the same parents or has one parent only—example: Findagrave often has a couple attached to each other but they have one or the other married additionally and the children may not be attached to the correct two parents or to only one parent.
It can be a nightmare if the person adding i fo is not able to disconnect or merge.

Only PRO, i.e., PAYING Geni users can disconnect and even though many BASIC users are able to “go around” the seamngly “HARD STOPS”, very few BASIC users can even SEE the duplicat
Es, much less MERGE them.

*duplicates, much less MERGE them.

I guess, I am slow to the party and still off and on the grid, but I was working with the Source Assistant pretty well today and then poof, I lost any ability on profiles to add details (that I did know were correct).

I am still more concerned about the gedcom dumps, but this seems like something that as long as you work responsibly, it is a good thing.

Is there a problem with the Geni Source Assistant. I tried using it over the weekend and it worked sporadically. It seems to be down completely now since yesterday with an error message that says "Try again later."

I find it is helpful if I have verified the profiles that I am adding and then can go back in and source.

Sources include census data, some family histories, wills, etc. I also use it to find errors and correct them on FAG and Family Search. Found a profile on Family Search the other day attached to my 4th great grandfather as his daughter when it should have been attached to his brother. Census data was clear on the profile. Not sure why someone would make that mess, but it happens. Write notes, disconnect, and move on. Found a duplicate memorial on FAG. Send in corrections, etc.

I don't think it is possible to work on just one tree to make it better and not try to correct errors in other public places. Or maybe that is just me. :-)

It’s not working for me either. I opened a ticket.

Thanks so much, Erica Howton!

Well, now the Source Assistant is opening up, but when you try to confirm with the green arrow, nothing happens. It will not accept the move. I know they will get it. Just takes time. It is a nice feature.

Seems to be entirely working for me now.

I will try again. :-)

I'm not sure if it's related with Source Assistant but last days I see the issue with Smart Matches.
When profile has several Smart Matches and I've confirming all of them. Only last one stay in "Confirmed Matches" in the profile others ones just disappear.

It's new issue. Before it had worked properly.
So something was broken somewhere...

Andrei Puzanov I had the same thing happen last night. I thought maybe I had missed it or something, but it was not there.

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