The New Family Search and How It Changes Everything... well almost everything

I recently became a Family History Consultant in our ward and eagerly waited for access to the New Family Search to be assigned. We are in a test area which requires advance approval and I was excited about the sneak preview.

I watched the Introduction with interest, it explained how the Church combined its core Genealogy Records, namely the Ancestral File, Pedigree Resource Files, The International Genealogical Index, Church Records, and Church Temple Records into one massive data base.

I dove into the new website with much anticipation of seeing how our Family Records fared with respect to this significant undertaking, which is purposed to:

• See what information the Church already has about you and your ancestors
• Add new information and make corrections
• Work with other relatives on shared family lines
• Do temple ordinances for your ancestors

My initial reaction was disappointment. Our family records, at least as held by the church need a lot of work. There are significant duplications, substantial factual errors, entire branches missing, and in general – much work yet to be accomplished. You can rest assured that all our work is NOT done!

So how does this change everything? It does so by providing a platform for real collaboration and exchange of ideas while preserving all the work done before. It is, in my opinion, shear genius or more likely inspiration from above. For the first time, I can see how this work can reasonably be accomplished. How so? By creating a single space in which we can all unify our efforts and share research. It is in fact the very essence of what I have envisioned for over a decade, while working at a snails pace using existing tools.
 
There is one caveat, however. The basic work of doing genealogy and family history is unchanged. The essential task still remains, which is to accurately identify our ancestors, document the findings so they can be verified by others, then record the information and do the Temple Work in their behalf. And most of that activity occurs outside of the Family Search program.

How does all of this relate to the Family Organization? That’s easy! I have stated many times and believe it still to be the case that there is no more accurate or complete body of knowledge about the Ancestors and descendants of John Walker.  That is because the information we have has come from you, the actual descendants. Your countless GEDOM contributions, your ongoing corrections, and your continued research is truly exciting.
 
Which brings me to my final point.

Please take the time to become familiar with the New Family Search interface and be cautious about adding information, making corrections, or disputing facts unless you have applied a reasonable genealogy standard to your research. Now that we are all able to collaborate on the same set of records in Family Search, we ought to be focused on making corrections, not introducing more errors, combining records and not creating more duplications, collaborating on facts rather than too quickly disputing them.

As always, we welcome your input, your research findings, and above all keep those GEDCOMS coming in!

Best Wishes,

David Walker