OneGreatFamily is unique in its goal and method. Our goal is to unite the efforts of all people working on genealogy and to connect the world together as OneGreatFamily. This process begins with you, the user. Once you have entered your data into our system, we search our database for common information. When our system finds matches that are certain, it merges the records together. No information is ever lost when these mergers occur. Instead, each user's unique view of the data is preserved, even if that differs from other users.

When the system identifies a possible match, we call that a Hint. Hints occur when much of the information about two people is identical, but there are either sufficient differences or a lack of information such that the system cannot be certain of the match. Hints are indicated in Genealogy Browser by the Genbulb icon. Note that you must turn on Genbulbs in the toolbar before they will be shown in the Starfield.



When hints appear, you may view them by clicking on the light bulb icon on the right side of the individual edit box. This will bring up the Hint for that particular individual. You may examine and choose to merge the data, or leave it how it is.

Merging data may bring many generations of previously unknown information into your file. Many users have already experienced great increases in their pedigrees through merging.

The more data that you enter and the further back in ancestry you can get, the better chance you have for receiving Hints. For example, a member entered 2000 names. Because of our database's automatic search capabilities, his family tree now carries 23,000 names in it. You may also choose to collaborate with the user who submitted that data. That way, you may work out any differences you may have.