Avoiding duplication - progress report

To give some context let me start by employing a quote from "Gordon B. Hinckley, “Opening Remarks,” Ensign, Nov 2005, 4"

"One of the most troublesome aspects of our temple activity is that as we get more and more temples scattered across the earth there is duplication of effort in proxy work. People in various nations simultaneously work on the same family lines and come up with the same names. They do not know that those in other areas are doing the same thing. We, therefore, have been engaged for some time in a very difficult undertaking. To avoid such duplication, the solution lies in complex computer technology. Preliminary indications are that it will work, and if this is so, it will be a truly remarkable thing with worldwide implications."

I hope I am not out of place in asking this question but I am very interest in the progress of this effort. Having at least some understanding of the complexity of the effort I realize that any detailed communications are going to involve some conscious effort. How can I learn more about these efforts and thus become a part of the solution. As I take it this forum is open to these kinds of discussions. How much detail on this subject can you share with me. Thank you so much for the opportunity to participate in a forum like this.

In the Family History session for the Tech Talk in Provo, the brother in charge discussed that in the new program it will be a collaborative, self-governing model (a la wikipedia) where anybody will be able to go in and clean up the records (such as merging two duplicates). I find this functionality very fascinating in a family history context, and am eager to see how it is handled.

The (soon to be) new process was also discussed, whereby temples will be linked into the system for real-time updates so that when you want to print off names or submit names, one can check for duplicates and make sure the work has not yet been done. Having all temples hooked into the system will, in my mind, greatly help the duplication problem experienced by some.

A sample of the process from what I understand is:

1. You search for your relatives and gather a few names (10 or so)
2. You then submit the names using the Church's FamilySearch desktop client to FamilySearch
3. It checks to make sure there are no duplicates
4. You can select which ordinances you want to do
5. You then print off a page that includes a barcode
6. You take this barcode to the temple and they print off your names
7. You then do work in small groups (like 10 names) and then you can manage the cards a lot more efficently.

The major undertaking was the ability to search through the records in a few milliseconds to find duplicates and to display the results of this search. If I understood correctly, even faster then the google search engine.

Thanks for the replies. Every little bit I can learn is helpful. What I am hoping to learn is "how goes the battle?" Details about the what is left before it can be deployed? How can we help? Maybe even a few war stories. What were the major hurdles? What is the next step after the first version is deployed?

The project will soon enter its second Beta Phase. This project including the merging together over a billion names and has already removed programatically over 250 million duplicates. It also has features for combiining duplicate information before submitting names to the temple to also reduce the possibility of duplicate Temple Work.

How might one go about getting selected to be in the second beta phase?

Hopefully, "not of Utah", is not a requirement.

gordon wrote:The project will soon enter its second Beta Phase. This project including the merging together over a billion names and has already removed programatically over 250 million duplicates. It also has features for combiining duplicate information before submitting names to the temple to also reduce the possibility of duplicate Temple Work.

What additional information can be shared with us on the first beta phase? When did it start? How many were involved in it? What kinds of things were being done in it? Were there some great discoveries? What were they? How long is the second beta phased supposed to last? What is the process like for someone who is involved in the second beta phase?

I like the prophet's idea! I think it could work.

gordon wrote:The project will soon enter its second Beta Phase.

I note that this question was asked, but want it clear there are others out there who are also interested.

I currently advise our stake on geneology technology for the family history centers. Due to some unfortunate choices by those in authority, but without technical understanding, all access to current temple ready data is unavailable. I am in the process of rebuilding this capability. If there are tools available in the near future that will make this effort unnecessary, I would love to hear about them.

Even if this is not an option for the FHC, I would be personally interested in participating in beta testing.

Thanks,

Russell

rwynne wrote:I currently advise our stake on genealogy technology for the family history centers. Due to some unfortunate choices by those in authority, but without technical understanding, all access to current temple ready data is unavailable. I am in the process of rebuilding this capability. If there are tools available in the near future that will make this effort unnecessary, I would love to hear about them.

Currently, as you know, to clear names for the temple, one has to use TempleReady and the data on the IGI and IGI Addendum CDs that were last updated Jan 2000. TempleReady is much faster when you can place the data on a server. It's hard to predict exactly when the new web-based program will be out. I've found in the past that even the insiders underestimate the time it takes for things to get necessary approval. The early news is that the product will be rolled out by temple district because it includes a different way of sending the names to the temple. It seems the roll out will start with smaller temple districts. While it could happen this year (it's only Feb) It's my personal uninformed peanut gallery guess that it will probably be more like 2008 before we get the order to discontinue TR.

In the meantime, the suggested way to avoid duplicates is to use PAFInsight to check the names.

Note: PAFInsight is a commercial program, but the writer does offer free licenses for FHCs. I find it's well thought of on the unofficial FHC support forums. Standard disclaimers about personal connection to PAFInsight apply.

rwynne wrote:I currently advise our stake on geneology technology for the family history centers. Due to some unfortunate choices by those in authority, but without technical understanding, all access to current temple ready data is unavailable. I am in the process of rebuilding this capability.

The church has been upgrading the FHCs to have an internet connection. If you do have an internet connection then you can just check FamilySearch which contains all the temple data. Without one, PAFInsight and other programs that try to verify the names will fail. As RussellHltn said the church discontinued the local Ordinance CDs that were used before.

I wrote a blog article on Renee's Genealogy Blog on "new FamilySearch" back when it was first called Family Tree. http://rzamor1.livejournal.com/2006/01/09/. If you scroll through my blog article titles at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com ... ljlog.html you will see what else I have written on the system. Since I was a beta 1 tester I hope I will be a beta 2 tester. My understand is that they were really looking for people with very, very little genealogy experience to be future testers. In fact they probably have all the people they can use in that area. Well I hope that helps answer some of your questions.

At the Draper Family History Center when patrons come in to clear names for the temple, we first help them run the names through PAF Insight to check for completed ordinance work. PAF Insight interfaces with PAF to compare the names in PAF to names in the Ordinance Index on the online IGI. If the work is completed those ordinance dates can be moved into the PAF record. The Ordinance Index on the online IGI is more up to date than the Temple Ready Disks used for clearing names for the Temple. After checking all names in Insight we then run the names through Temple Ready and create a diskette for the Temple. To use Insight the FHC must have an Internet conection. If you own a copy of PAF Insight that step can be done at home prior to bring your names to the Family History Center to clear the names in Temple Ready. In the Draper Family History Center the Temple Ready Disks are all loaded on a Network Server so no swapping of CD's is required to run Temple Ready.

When NewFamilySearch is completed it will replace Temple Ready. There is no firm date when that will be, but I'm sure it will be over a year before it is open to everyone. It is my understanding that Utah will be last to get it because they want to run it on a smaller scale for a while to make sure everything is working before bring online the largest groups of users. Pre-Beta2 testing is in progress now and Full-Beta2 testing will start soon. Who knows there may be a Beta3 test needed, there are a lot of changes from Beta1 to Beta2 that have not had much testing. Beta2 will include testing of the new Help Forums as well. You can go to www.familysearchlabs.org to see a part of the project that is posted for people to play with.