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Last Week at OneGreatFamily . . .Site
Activity Summary
147,288 new individual merges!
48,377 new individual hints!
54,798 new family merges!
13,355 new family hints!
88 average individual merges per group
35 average individual hints per group
27 average family merges per group
4 average family hints per group
If you didn't receive a
GenMail telling you about new merges in your family tree, your tree
wasn't affected by this activity. You may want to add new
individuals or information to your family tree to improve the
likelihood of matches and merges taking place.
Having Success?OneGreatFamily wants to hear
from you. Please send us your success stories and your
recommendations for new features.
Submit your story
Send us your wish
list
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Share your family tree on your website or by
email!
You can now link to your family tree and launch the
OneGreatFamily Genealogy Browser from your website or through an
email link. This new feature allows you to link to and view a family
tree including any individuals you have submitted or edited in
OneGreatFamily. Users will access your family tree as guests and
will see a read-only version of the family tree. This means they
won't be able to edit your information, accepts hints, or do
anything that would change the information you have provided to
OneGreatFamily.
Getting a link to your family tree is easy:
- Simply login to OneGreatFamily and click on the link under
"Create Links," which is located on the top right-hand side of the
page (avialable to subscribers only).
- Then enter the OGFN
of the individual in your family tree to whom you would like to
link. You can find the OGFN by searching for someone in your
family tree or by selecting the individual in the Genealogy
Browser.
- Next, select the number of generations you want displayed from
your site. The default setting is to display seven generations.
Each additional generation will require more time to
display.
- Finally, choose the group that you have used to submit or work
on your family tree and click next.
- At this point, you will see two different windows that include
the code for links you can use to share your genealogy. The first
link is an HTML link you can add to your website. The second link
contains the extended link in a text format. This allows you to
send the link to anyone by email. Simply press the highlight
button next to the link you want to use. Then copy and paste the
code into your web page or email message. It's that simple.
Our subscribers continue to make these enhancements
possible. Enjoy this new feature and help us continue to enhance our
service by subscribing to OneGreatFamily today!
 Login
to OneGreatFamily to create a link to your family
tree! |
When do I merge individuals and how do I resolve
conflicts?OneGreatFamily is the first truly collaborative
genealogy service that allows everyone in the world to work on a
common family tree. Overcoming the challenges of letting people work
on the same family tree hasn't been easy. First, we had to ensure
that people would always be able to retain "their own" view of their
family tree. This means that OneGreatFamily respects the opinions
and information provided by each person using OneGreatFamily and
preserves each unique perspective. Where conflicts or disputed
evidence occurs in OneGreatFamily, each person maintains his or her
right to see the information believed to be "right" or "most
accurate."
Where other software applications require an
immediate choice to be made when merging two individuals together as
to which version of information to keep, OneGreatFamily allows users
to merge individuals and still preserve all of the information from
both trees that have been merged.
The rule for merging two
people together in OneGreatFamily is quite simple (but can actually
require collaboration or additional research): "Feel comfortable
merging together any two individuals in OneGreatFamily who you are
confident are actually the same person." The question then becomes,
"How confident?"
OneGreatFamily can help with your confidence
level. When you click on a hint lightbulb, you will see a tab at the
top that shows OneGreatFamily's confidence level that the two
records are duplicates. Hints only occur if there is a high
probability of duplication. You can look at parents, spouses,
children, siblings, and event information to become more confident
in your decision to either merge the records or to reject the
hint.
Here are two good examples:
Example 1: Two individuals in OneGreatFamily
have the same name, parents and birth information. They also have
identical spouses by name. On closer examination, however, you see
that the version in your tree includes three children and the
other version includes only one child. The child included in the
other version is also included in your list of
children.
This is a case where you can safely merge the two
individuals OneGreatFamily did not automatically merge them
because they had different information for the children; however,
the chance that they are actually two different people is
remote.
Merging these two people will create a conflict,
but that's OK. You will continue to see three children from your
perspective, and the person who submitted the other version of the
family tree will now "inherit" two additional children. Merging
the two lines together may provide both of you additional names
and information for your known family trees.
That's part of
the power of OneGreatFamily. You can collaborate with the person
who submitted the other version of the family tree. In this case,
there is a good chance the other researcher has only focused on a
direct line and has chosen not to research other siblings. Merging
the common ancestor can provide one or both of you with exciting
new leads and information to verify and "make your
own."
Example 2: Two men in OneGreatFamily have the
same parents and birth information, but their wives and children
don't look the same. Upon closer inspection, the two men have one
wife in common, but one of the men has a second wife listed. You
look further and recognize most of the children also have the same
information The common wife also has the same birth information
and names for parents.
In this case, you can also safely
merge the two men and the wife who is listed as the spouse in both
cases; however, be careful NOT to merge the second wife who was
listed for one of the men with the first. Merging the two
duplicate men does not mean you agree that he had two wives or
that you necessarily agree with the information included in the
other family tree. It simply means there is enough information
available to identify both individuals as the same
person.
Merging these people will also create conflicts.
You will have conflicts on the children as well as on the spouses.
You will want to merge both instances of the common wife, since
you have verified that the information has been duplicated and
merge together any duplicate children. Take care NOT to merge the
two wives together, since they are not the same person and come
from different families. You can feel comfortable
merging people together who are obviously the same, even if all of
the detailed information doesn't match perfectly. Use your common
sense to only merge together people who are in fact duplicates of
each other. Looking at available notes and sources can be another
tool to identify when two people are duplicates.
You will
always be prompted to resolve conflicts that occur as a result of
merging people together. Don't feel that you need to accept the
information that has been supplied by others as your own. You will
want to refer to notes and sources to inform any decisions you make.
You can also contact the other researcher to learn more about the
information they have supplied. Differences in opinion or evidence
are natural in genealogy. Resolving all conflicts, although it may
sound like a noble goal, is not necessary to succeed with
OneGreatFamily.
OneGreatFamily will continue to automatically
provide hints and merges; however, your participation and the
participation of others is vital in the effort to create a "common
family tree" for all of humanity.
Visit OneGreatFamily and research
your family tree today! |
The following success story shows what can happen when
OneGreatFamily finds information in your family tree that can be
matched and merged with others:
I have been a member since
May of 2003. I entered a new ancestor on August 6 -- a Katherine
Saunders b 1480 in Surrey, England. I checked my tree, British
Family Lines, the next day. It had grown from this 1 new ancestor
(which was generation # 17 and a total of 126 ancestors) to
generation 118 and 1443 ancestors!!!
I am so boggled, I don't
know where to start! Just looking at all the names, the unbelievable
antiquity, the history, and the famous people -- it is incredible
and so exciting. I never dreamed it would work like this. I thought
I may get lucky and get back to maybe 1000AD.
Thank you so
much for your wonderful program and site. It has brought so much
pleasure to my family and myself. Much more researching to go on
other family lines! Happy researching!
Kind Regards, Diane
Goldsmith
Submit your success
story
Visit OneGreatFamily see the human
family tree from your own perspective |
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Want some FREE time?Current subscribers can
earn additional free time by referring others to OneGreatFamily.com.
OneGreatFamily needs your help in growing the largest single family
tree in the world. You can get free subscription time on
OneGreatFamily by referring others to this unique service When
anyone you refer to OneGreatFamily subscribes to our service and
enters your username, you get an additional free month.
Learn more about this FREE
opportunity
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OneGreatFamily today.
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