On Sat, 18 Jun 2011 12:55:09 -0400, singhals <[email protected]> wrote: >Steve Hayes wrote: >> On Sat, 18 Jun 2011 09:15:09 -0400, Bob LeChevalier<[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Steve Hayes<[email protected]> wrote: >>>> You see this list of trees that all have things like "10472 >>>> individuals" - so which one is the original and which ones are the copies? >>> >>> Why would it matter? The data is the same. > >I can't find the post where someone wrote the last line above. It was Bob >ONE of the reasons it matters is to trace the earliest >assertion to assess the potential accuracy. > >If a family in New Orleans says their daughter married Gen. >Benjamin Butler's son in 1876, they're only saying it >because it's true and they can't plausibly deny it. If the >General says it, same thing. But if the great-granddaughter >of the New Orleans girl married a Connecticutite whose >family history in 1995 says it -- probably wants looking into. Quite. And if you see it asserted on a web site, but you cannot even see WHO asserted it (as happens on Mundia) then the site does NOT facilitate genealogical networking and communication. I can see a family tree on line that shows A descneding from B and C, and I can switch to pedigree chart view to see the same thing, but I cannot see WHO posted there, and if I don't know who posted it, how can I communicate with them to find the source of their information? -- Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Steve Hayes <[email protected]> wrote: >And if you see it asserted on a web site, but you cannot even see WHO >asserted it (as happens on Mundia) then the site does NOT facilitate >genealogical networking and communication. > >I can see a family tree on line that shows A descneding from B and C, and I >can switch to pedigree chart view to see the same thing, but I cannot see WHO >posted there, and if I don't know who posted it, how can I communicate with >them to find the source of their information? I just logged into Mundia, having determined that it would allow me to use my ancestry id. If you are looking at a tree, then there is an arrow on the right that is clickable to see an abbreviated profile. Under the "picture" there is a selection window that says "more". Clicking on that lets you select "View Profile" (I believe that you can also get there directly from the search results). Viewing the profile for one random person, I see that each of the facts for this person: birth, marriage, death has to the right a note 1977 Redcar and Cleveland, Cleveland, England Posted by xyz. If you move your cursor over xyz's name, it gives a popup with the person's location and whether they are an ancestry member, and there is a little envelope icon marked "contact". Clicking on that lets you send an email through ancestry's connection service (which shows only user ids and not personal information). There is also a link at the bottom to contact the person who created the profile (who is usually the one who adds the data, but in a collaborative tree that might not be the case). Also on the profile screen in the upper right is a "sources" tab, that will tell you what ancestry may know about the sources (which usually isn't worth much. I've verified for my own (well-sourced) trees that it does show some useful information, but it mostly isn't worth much unless you have an ancestry account to actually look at the sources. For most of the trees that are on there now, not created under Mundia, that is pretty much all that you can do. If someone is part of Mundia, it seems that you could click on their name (rather than using the popup to contact them), and their own profile and/or tree will come up. But since ancestry has over 2 billion people in their trees and probably only a few thousand yet using Mundia, the odds will be rather slim for a while. I note in passing on the search screen that they have a rudimentary "persona" filter. If you enter a name with insufficient data, you will get numerous hits, but those personas which seem to refer to the same person are listed together. This is an improvement over ancestry's current tree search. You are correct that you may see a dozen trees, all with 10692 people in them (though usually there are some with a different number), and the only way you will be able to tell them apart is to look at them. It is pretty clear that the site is NOT intended for serious genealogists, unless said genealogists are looking to get their family members involved collaboratively. It does let the non-ancestry subscriber search the gamut of public trees for free, though, and that could be worth something to those opposed to financially supporting ancestry, but who want access to the data. lojbab --- Bob LeChevalier - artificial linguist; genealogist [email protected] Lojban language www.lojban.org