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What non-archival information are you talking about? Everything I see on familysearch is primary documents or text indexed directly. Anything else are simply tr

by jjeaff 6y ago

What non-archival information are you talking about? Everything I see on familysearch is primary documents or text indexed directly. Anything else are simply trees that others have created. And I definitely wouldn't trust that info blindly because users do really get overzealous in trying to trace their lineage. But family search allows you to attach primary documents to all names so you can easily confirm whether that info is valid or not.

tosser0001 6y ago
Yes, I agree here. The beauty of FamilySearch is that they've done an amazing job archiving and cataloging the primary documents they have. Ancestry does have some good stuff too, but FamilySearch can feel more like an online research library. I know they do auto-generate some tree information which can be incorrect, but that can largely be ignored or used as hints, etc. I get the sense that not many people realize just exactly how much stuff they have actually accumulated. It's truly amazing for the areas that I've been looking at which are primarily US, Canada, Britain and Ireland. I tend to think of it as one of the pillars of online data collections along with things like, archive.org and, say, Google Books. It's incredible the amount of material that is at our fingertips now. The one biggest missing pieces for me is the staggering number of microfilmed historical newspapers that have yet to be digitized. I know the library of Congress has put a lot on line but there are still 10s of thousands of rolls of microfilm that haven't been processed and I'm not sure if there is any push to do it.
- markdown 6y ago
  > The one biggest missing pieces for me is the staggering number of microfilmed historical newspapers that have yet to be digitized. Blackstone just bought the best resource for this, newspapers.com Costs between $8 and $20/month.
hinkley 6y ago
Genealogist was constantly getting upset because someone would see a John Johnson in the same town in roughly the same age bracket and say that's him, make the link and move on without a second thought. Problem is, our fascination with unique names is very recent. Our forebears were highly unoriginal with names, language barriers (including illiteracy + accents) would sometimes unintentionally see a person get a slightly different name in a new town. She had a guy with three names, and a suspicion that when he disappeared that he didn't die in a ditch, but instead finally changed his name on purpose. Looking through my mother's research, I found what I thought were first cousins marrying, so I backed away slowly. Genealogist saw this a lot. Just mark it done and don't think about it any more. After some more time with genealogist I finally looked at it more closely. This guy found himself a wife who was six days younger than his paternal cousin of the same name, from an unrelated family. Apparently nobody in this fucked up little town could figure out how to name their kids. Everyone named a kid after grandma, or married someone with grandma's name, and half of them had a sister named after her. Nine. There were nine women, by birth or marriage, in 3 generations, with the same first name, in the same town. I can't imagine family gatherings. Ever wonder how you get 'Peggy' from Margaret? I don't anymore. Somewhere there was Grandma Margaret who just wanted to nap in peace and so she nicknamed her granddaughter Peggy so people would stop yelling her name.
- SkyBelow 6y ago
  >I found what I thought were first cousins marrying, so I backed away slowly. This was and, to an extent, still is quite normal, so I'm not sure why people have such an issue with it. Genetic issues build up if you keep doing it for generations, but unless the first cousins were raised together there is none of the power imbalances at play. Those who were raised together have an effect kick in so that they see each other as siblings and don't marry. Even though in your case it didn't happen, it isn't something worth worrying even had it occurred.
  - knicholes 6y ago
    If both parents have a recessive gene for a recessive genetic disorder, their offspring will inherit that disorder. That's why people have such an issue with it. It doesn't take multiple generations for this to happen. But I agree that it'll get much worse if it keeps happening, as heterozygous couples will eventually produce these recessive offsprings, who, when mated, will produce children with these disorders.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      > If both parents have a recessive gene for a recessive genetic disorder, their offspring will inherit that disorder. That's why people have such an issue with it. It doesn't take multiple generations for this to happen. But that's only relevant to the immediate offspring. A single generation of outbreeding reduces the level of inbreeding to zero. So if you see a cousin marriage several generations back... so what?
    - SkyBelow 6y ago
      >That's why people have such an issue with it. I see that as a common claim, but given the lack of similar concern to non related individuals with recessive genetic disorders, even in cases where both parents have it, or in cases where parents have dominant genetic disorders, I find myself seeing this as a more after the fact rationalization than the actual reasoning. And as for the actual increase it risk, it seems quite minor compared to many other behaviors that increase risk which society doesn't frown upon nearly as much (with drinking and drug use being the notable exceptions that are routinely condemned).
hinkley 6y ago
When Ancestry.com was youngish, the genealogy community started pushing back against the quality control problems. It's entirely likely that in the intervening time they mostly succeeded in improving the quality of the data. But she spent a lot of energy on refuting evidence that turned out to be circumstantial.

by jjeaff 6y ago

tosser0001 6y ago

Yes, I agree here. The beauty of FamilySearch is that they've done an amazing job archiving and cataloging the primary documents they have. Ancestry does have some good stuff too, but FamilySearch can feel more like an online research library. I know they do auto-generate some tree information which can be incorrect, but that can largely be ignored or used as hints, etc. I get the sense that not many people realize just exactly how much stuff they have actually accumulated. It's truly amazing for the areas that I've been looking at which are primarily US, Canada, Britain and Ireland. I tend to think of it as one of the pillars of online data collections along with things like, archive.org and, say, Google Books. It's incredible the amount of material that is at our fingertips now. The one biggest missing pieces for me is the staggering number of microfilmed historical newspapers that have yet to be digitized. I know the library of Congress has put a lot on line but there are still 10s of thousands of rolls of microfilm that haven't been processed and I'm not sure if there is any push to do it.

markdown 6y ago
> The one biggest missing pieces for me is the staggering number of microfilmed historical newspapers that have yet to be digitized. Blackstone just bought the best resource for this, newspapers.com Costs between $8 and $20/month.

hinkley 6y ago

Genealogist was constantly getting upset because someone would see a John Johnson in the same town in roughly the same age bracket and say that's him, make the link and move on without a second thought. Problem is, our fascination with unique names is very recent. Our forebears were highly unoriginal with names, language barriers (including illiteracy + accents) would sometimes unintentionally see a person get a slightly different name in a new town. She had a guy with three names, and a suspicion that when he disappeared that he didn't die in a ditch, but instead finally changed his name on purpose. Looking through my mother's research, I found what I thought were first cousins marrying, so I backed away slowly. Genealogist saw this a lot. Just mark it done and don't think about it any more. After some more time with genealogist I finally looked at it more closely. This guy found himself a wife who was six days younger than his paternal cousin of the same name, from an unrelated family. Apparently nobody in this fucked up little town could figure out how to name their kids. Everyone named a kid after grandma, or married someone with grandma's name, and half of them had a sister named after her. Nine. There were nine women, by birth or marriage, in 3 generations, with the same first name, in the same town. I can't imagine family gatherings. Ever wonder how you get 'Peggy' from Margaret? I don't anymore. Somewhere there was Grandma Margaret who just wanted to nap in peace and so she nicknamed her granddaughter Peggy so people would stop yelling her name.

SkyBelow 6y ago
>I found what I thought were first cousins marrying, so I backed away slowly. This was and, to an extent, still is quite normal, so I'm not sure why people have such an issue with it. Genetic issues build up if you keep doing it for generations, but unless the first cousins were raised together there is none of the power imbalances at play. Those who were raised together have an effect kick in so that they see each other as siblings and don't marry. Even though in your case it didn't happen, it isn't something worth worrying even had it occurred.
- knicholes 6y ago
  If both parents have a recessive gene for a recessive genetic disorder, their offspring will inherit that disorder. That's why people have such an issue with it. It doesn't take multiple generations for this to happen. But I agree that it'll get much worse if it keeps happening, as heterozygous couples will eventually produce these recessive offsprings, who, when mated, will produce children with these disorders.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > If both parents have a recessive gene for a recessive genetic disorder, their offspring will inherit that disorder. That's why people have such an issue with it. It doesn't take multiple generations for this to happen. But that's only relevant to the immediate offspring. A single generation of outbreeding reduces the level of inbreeding to zero. So if you see a cousin marriage several generations back... so what?
  - SkyBelow 6y ago
    >That's why people have such an issue with it. I see that as a common claim, but given the lack of similar concern to non related individuals with recessive genetic disorders, even in cases where both parents have it, or in cases where parents have dominant genetic disorders, I find myself seeing this as a more after the fact rationalization than the actual reasoning. And as for the actual increase it risk, it seems quite minor compared to many other behaviors that increase risk which society doesn't frown upon nearly as much (with drinking and drug use being the notable exceptions that are routinely condemned).

hinkley 6y ago

When Ancestry.com was youngish, the genealogy community started pushing back against the quality control problems. It's entirely likely that in the intervening time they mostly succeeded in improving the quality of the data. But she spent a lot of energy on refuting evidence that turned out to be circumstantial.