New FamilySearch Tree Sagas - Week 5

I received a copy of President Hinckley's photo and quote that used to be on New FamilySearch's sign-in page. Thanks so much Joyce. I was trying to add it to this article but some reason it was just coming out fuzzy. I suspect it's operator error. Here is the quote.

"From the very beginning of this Church, its members have been under religious obligation to identify their ancestors."

President Gordon B. Hinckley

Another reader "Momklip" sent me the link to where you can see it, click here. It's on a Family History Consultant website, and now that I've posted the link I'm sure someone at FamilySearch will note the "error" and change it.

In last week's article I wrote about how I standardized a place in the detail view and then changed it to the corrected locality in the summary view. I found out that when I left the summary view and then later returned back it would go back to what I originally had listed and not the corrected version. It wouldn't stick in the summary view. I sent an inquiry to support to see what was going on.

That night even before I got off my computer I had a reply from someone at FamilySearch support. I decided to read it in the morning and reply to it. The person helping me was trying to have me change it in the details, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was changing it in the summary view to what I had in the details. Anyways to try and make a long story short after two phone calls and several attempts to fix the problem, all we succeeded in doing was making me have my name listed three times as the submitter of the same event information instead of twice as before. I feel like it's tied up somehow to my mother's legacy contribution that was changed to my name.

I did finally get an answer to support on the issue.

Document ID: 102972
new FamilySearch: Different information appears in the "Summary" view than in the "Details" view
Instructions for Area Support
Please thank the patron and let him or her know that the engineers are aware of this problem. Then close the case.
Problem
When you view the available items to set as the default Summary view, the same items don't appear in the Details view.
Resolution
This is a known issue and has been reported to the engineers.

So the bottom line - I've experienced my first bug with the system. At least it was only standardizing the locality name and nothing earth shattering.

Here is the reply I received concerning my name being listed twice, well three times now as a submitter on the same event.

Dear Sister Zamora
Thank you for contacting family search support.
You have a good question. I am sure you are right that when you took over your mothers legacy that put you in twice because each submission will put the contributor in. The engineers are trying very hard to update this wonderful program and the only way to make it better is feed back from us as missionaries and you as a patron user. May I suggest that you submitt a feedback to the engineers as I feel that is a good suggestion to combine the contributors if they are the same individual. At this point each entry has a submittor or contributor and that is why you are listed twice and maybe they will not feel combining is necessary but it would be nice to know.
I will also bring this up at our meeting that we have each week as well.
Good luck and thank you for helping us make the system work better
Respectfully
hsb

First thing I did tonight was find my grandfather's event that had me now listed three times as the submitter and give a feedback/suggestion to merge my contributor information together.

This past week I wrote my dad and asked him if I could claim his legacy contribution since he no longer does genealogy. He was very happy to have me claim it. I was able to find three different contributor ids for my dad and I put in a request to claim each of them. I wonder how long it will take to claim a living individual's legacy contribution? It says 4-6 weeks but it was only a couple of days to claim mine or my deceased mom's contribution. I will report back when I receive word on my request. I also wonder if on my grandfather's death information if I will be listed four times as the contributor since my dad contribution is there too.

I did get one surprise while I was looking over the submitters on my grandfather's record. Someone has claimed their legacy contribution and now I have an email address to contact them. The contributors name is Bill Stephens so I emailed him. It would be great if I found some long lost cousin that is a member of the Church. WAHOO! that means someone else will be working with me to clean up the files on my family.

Speaking of someone working with me I realized all week that my name will be all over the place on mine, my mother's and now my father's contributions. That means I really do need to do all this combining myself because I can actually edit my own stuff. If you were a previous contributor to databases on FamilySearch then you have a big job ahead of you. I guess my family could help but if they need to edit anything they would need me to go in there and make the changes. Well at least I have one potential partner in crime now.

Oops, I found on my great-grandmother Bentley's birth record myself listed as a contributor with my contact information and then me listed again with my mother's id information right after my name. But, it doesn't give my contact information. Is it suppose to be that way? I sent off a feedback to find out why. I really want to make sure that my contact information is available since I took over my mother's legacy contribution.

Well, it's time now to call it a night. I started over 4 hours ago. I did a lot of looking for my dad's contributor ids to claim. I have also done a little combining on my great grandparents Charles Bentley & Emmeline Green's family. Then of course standardizing all those localities. There is hardly a one that has come through as it should have. That Ancestral File submission of mine was soooooooooo many years ago and before I fixed all my localities. Now I have to go back in and correct them again! This is going to take me a lifetime. I'm off to bed for now.

See ya tomorrow, for tomorrow is always another genealogy day!