Information about ordinance proxies

I sat down this afternoon to look up my grandfather on FamilySearch. I was excited to see that once you log in with your membership number and confirmation date, that you can see ordinance information for your ancestors.

I was really excited to see that someone had already done the ordinance work for my grandfather, this was exciting to me because I joined the church when I was 18 and don't know anyone else in my family who is a member. I thought, it sure would be nice to be able to see who did this ordinance. I could see that they did it in Washington DC, in 2002, but the submitter information was blank.

When I looked again at the search results, I saw my grandfather listed again. Same name, same birth information, same parents, however this entry showed his ordinances being performed in Columbia in 2006.
Now I REALLY wanted to get in contact with these people (if nothing else just to stop the duplicate work).

So I have two questions:

1. Is there a way to contact the people performing these ordinances.
2. Being that we have all of these ultra-sophisticated database analysis techniques, can't we prevent people from doing duplicate temple work, I mean just having part of temple ready search the IGI would be sufficient I would think to stop the majority of the duplicates.

Lee

lfalin wrote:1. Is there a way to contact the people performing these ordinances.

I'm sure someone will have the details, but the short answer is: maybe. What information did you see about the submitter?

lfalin wrote:2. Being that we have all of these ultra-sophisticated database analysis techniques, can't we prevent people from doing duplicate temple work, I mean just having part of temple ready search the IGI would be sufficient I would think to stop the majority of the duplicates.

You'd think. But not always. The TempleReady program only checks a set of CDs that haven't been updated since 2000. So the folks that did the work in 2006 may not have been aware that it was done in 2002.

The church is currently undergoing a major change-over in the whole database system making it on-line. Check the threads on "New FamilySearch" or nFS.

lfalin wrote:I sat down this afternoon to look up my grandfather on FamilySearch. I was excited to see that once you log in with your membership number and confirmation date, that you can see ordinance information for your ancestors.

I was really excited to see that someone had already done the ordinance work for my grandfather, this was exciting to me because I joined the church when I was 18 and don't know anyone else in my family who is a member. I thought, it sure would be nice to be able to see who did this ordinance. I could see that they did it in Washington DC, in 2002, but the submitter information was blank.

When I looked again at the search results, I saw my grandfather listed again. Same name, same birth information, same parents, however this entry showed his ordinances being performed in Columbia in 2006.
Now I REALLY wanted to get in contact with these people (if nothing else just to stop the duplicate work).

So I have two questions:

1. Is there a way to contact the people performing these ordinances.
2. Being that we have all of these ultra-sophisticated database analysis techniques, can't we prevent people from doing duplicate temple work, I mean just having part of temple ready search the IGI would be sufficient I would think to stop the majority of the duplicates.
Lee

newFamilySearch will show you a contact name and eventually will have contact information as it is rolled out to all the Temple districts. People will be able to claim their submissions and you will then be able to contact them from within newFamilySearch. newFamilySearch will also prevent duplicate ordinances, it is in use or announced in over 50 Temples now. There are some slide shows showing some screen views of newFamilySearch at this site:
newfamilyhistory.googlepages.com/fhconsultantlinks

GarysTurn wrote:newFamilySearch will also prevent duplicate ordinances,

Just a quibble: I'd say that nFS will help prevent duplicate ordinances. It's not infallible and I'm sure there will still be duplicates. But hopefully it will cut it down to acceptable levels.

When will extractions be compared to existing completed temple ordinances? After years of focusing on large cities, small towns where my ancestors lived have finally been extracted and their templework has been done. Again. Also, I've had several instances where names or places have been revised to "standardize" them. Removing the surname so that Michael's work is done really does *not* contribute to reducing duplications.

scion wrote:When will extractions be compared to existing completed temple ordinances? After years of focusing on large cities, small towns where my ancestors lived have finally been extracted and their templework has been done. Again. Also, I've had several instances where names or places have been revised to "standardize" them. Removing the surname so that Michael's work is done really does *not* contribute to reducing duplications.

Here is another place where I was personally [privately] attacked for being "critical". Given these situations, I do not see how the latest software program will *decrease* duplications. These issues are *increasing* duplication. I did not say that I liked or approved of the duplication, just pointed out ways that I observe this objective not being met. Leaving the places and names as submitted will decrease duplications. Changing them--especially to completely non-related places and without feedback to & from the submitter--does not help. Pointing out shortcomings in a beta should be desirable, not frowned upon. However, this forum is more of a cheerleading group than an idea generator when it comes to nFS.

scion wrote:Here is another place where I was personally attacked for being "critical".

Can you clarify on that? There are no messages on this thread between your post and the post you reference. It's hard to see where you've been attacked. Personal attacks are not allowed. Disagreement with any ideas expressed is not a personal attack and well within forum rules.

It was posted to me personally, not to the forums. No names or explanations were provided.

I realize that pointing out errors or problems in software is, by its very nature, critical. However, when software development is happening, feedback from end users is vital.

I am also currently a beta tester for software at work. On a recent crash item (it would not find search results, rendering the program useless), a developer came down and watched me search & the program crash. Long story short, until he watched me, the programming team did not understand our typical search scenario. The same thing is true of nFS and other programs.

I want nFS to work just as much as the next person. That is why I persist at providing feedback--whether it's a frozen screen, getting "timed out" during downloads, navigation problems, or terms used in unfamiliar (non-genealogical) ways. For my sanity, I take breaks from nFS. Long breaks. Then I come back & have another go at it.

scion wrote:It was posted to me personally, not to the forums. No names or explanations were provided.

It sounds like you are saying that someone sent you an anonymous private message. I don't know whether PMs can be sent anonymously on this forum.

Although I don't know what was contained in the PM, I am sorry that you felt or were attacked for providing feedback. Please understand, though, that since this was a private message, your public response to it lacks the context for the rest of us to make sense of where you are coming from.

Also, if the "attack" was truly anonymous, there is little way of knowing if it was truly from an official source or just someone's personal opinion however poorly and tactlessly expressed.

Since your post lacks the context of how you submitted the feedback (i.e. via this forum or some other feedback mechanism for nFS) we don't even know whether this is the most appropriate place to be discussing it. And I'm not sure whether it really pertains to the original thread or should be its own separate thread.

Regardless, I'm sure that the forums members will be as helpful as they can.

People can use the "Reputation" link to leave an anonymous message about why they liked or disliked a particular post.

Mikerowaved wrote:People can use the "Reputation" link to leave an anonymous message about why they liked or disliked a particular post.

Because of my rights here on the forum, I can confirm by looking at the logs that this was a reputation "zing." The comment left was short and sweet, but does have merit. In my own words...being critical just for the sake of being critical helps no one. Constructive criticism would be the civilized way of submitting feedback.

While I would admit your feedback has a lot of clout and is helpful, your posts do seem to find a way to end on a sour note. This could alienate those you are trying to reach.

If you have further concerns about this situation, please feel free to contact me via private means and we can discuss this further. We've let this side issue take over the thread. Let's try to get back to the subject at hand.

Fair enough. Two people didn't like *how* I pointed out problems with nFS. Back to the issues which have yet to be addressed:

1) When will ongoing extractions be compared to existing completed temple work in nFS? This double standard of what is expected by the rank-and-file members v what is done by the church has not been answered. And, just to throw in a monkey wrench, at one point I lived in an area where many nonmembers submitted their names for temple work. These new processes omit them completely because when nFS becomes available to non members they still won't see ordinance data. (That's my understanding of the plan.)

2) Standardizing names to places that don't match the century does *not* make research easier and is a data integrity problem. The software has been altering places for several years now.

3) Dropping, changing, or otherwise altering names does not help the people get linked, either. I don't recall which Michael I posted about in April--there are a number of them in my files. This is a newer problem for me.

4) The huge number of false positive search results due to the lack of the searcher's ability to prioritize and limit searches will result in continued duplications. (This was brought up recently by McGuire on another thread.)

Each of these problems that is part of nFS contributes to creating more duplications, not minimizing them.