Strange things in NFS

Today I was  looking in NFS to see if there were problems that  needed fixing.  I should have know there were.  I looked at my grandfather Gee's siblings.  There they were, more problems.  I will only relate one, because it was solved rather quickly.  John Ether Gee was married to Edith Karren and had a family.  Someone had added another spouse to Edith Karren Gee.  His name was John Oscar Gee (no close relation).  He also had another wife whose name was Edith and they had two daughters Caroline and Ruth.  There was a contributor name and she had a phone number, address and e-mail address.  I called her and told her of the problem, and since she was the contributor and a family history consultant, she deleted the relationship and now Edith only has John Ether as a husband.  It works well when people communicate and I did not have to go through Support to fix the problem.  


Stay tuned there are other problems in the Erastus Rowe Gee's family that need solving.

Correspondence with NFS

Detailed below is the correspondence that I have had with Support at New Family Search.  I have been trying to correct the records on the Gee line.  Here is what has happened this past week.

April 26

Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch regarding the confusion in the family of William Gee (1739-1817)LZJG-NS1 and Abigail Mack (1740-1838) LZJ7-32S. We have separated, combined and unlinked so that the only remaining problem is that Sarah Gee (1765-) LZLN-218 is incorrectly linked as a spouse of her sister, Abigal's, Husband - John Lewis (1751-1795) LZJZ-6L7. we are forwarding this to another group to correct. You should hear directly from them if they can make the correction.
With regard to the incorrect gender on Salmon Tinker, we suggest you create another case with that request and provide some proof of the correct gender so that the incorrect gender record can be removed.
Please do not respond to this email as it will confuse the request for unlinking of the incorrect spousal relationship.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch
Patron and Partner Services

Dear Bother Gee,

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch regarding the combined records of Elias Gee LZ25-BD4 showing incorrect parents George Washington Gee II KWZG-Z41 and unknown spouse.

We have verified the information that you sent us for the record of Elias Gee LH27-8V9. Since you are in contact with the contributor of the relationship between Elias Gee LZ25-B8G and George Washington Gee II KWZG-Z41, we ask that you relay this information to the contributor to have this incorrect relationship deleted. You do not want to delete the individuals, just the relationship.

To delete the relationship for this record, follow these steps:

1. Go to the record of George Washington Gee II KWZG-Z41
2. From the Family Pedigree with Details view, click on Spouses and Children
3. Make sure that the Unknown Spouse with the child Elias Gee is showing on the screen.
4. Click on View relationship details under the Children Options
5. A box will pop up with Elias as child and George as the father, click on Edit next to Biological on the Right hand side
6. Another box will pop up with the option to edit the relationship or under the contributor name, to delete/ add a source/ add a note. This relationship needs to be deleted.

That should remove the relationship and change the record for George Washington Gee back to only having 2 spouses. Once that is completed, we will be able to reevaluate this case, and work to remove the incorrect parents from the record of Elias Gee MZ5J-ZK9.

We have also attached a document that gives more information on how to delete an individual from a relationship. We found this document by using the search terms Delete Relationship.

You can access this document by clicking on the blue link below. If you have not visited the Help Center recently, we would encourage you to do so. A link to the Help Center can be located at the bottom of every page in new FamilySearch.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us. You can reply to this email or you may also call us at 1-866-406-1830 (available 24 hours a day 7 days a week), please remember to include your case number 2578909 for reference.

We wish you success as you continue to use the features in new FamilySearch.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch
Patron and Partner Services

Dear Ivin Gee,

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch regarding George Washington Schellenger and George Washington Gee.

The link you send us did not work and when we copied and pasted it in the browser we got a message that that address was "invalid".

As we stiil would like to have a look at this for you we would appriciate it if you could attached the PDF file to the e-mail as you respond to this one.

We are looking forward to receiving this information so we can help you resolve this issue.

Sincerely

FamilySearch
Patron and Partner Services

Here is the link to the document. 

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxseXNhbmRlcmdlZXdlYnNpdGV8Z3g6NWVjYzhmMjI1OWQ5MjA2ZA&pli=1

Dear Ivin Laurence Gee:


Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Support.

Sarah Gee (1765-) LZLN-218  is no longer linked as a spouse of her sister, Abigail Gee's, Husband  -  John Lewis.

We have removed the record of a female named Salmon Tinker.

We appreciate your interest and accuracy in the sacred work.


Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration

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(CaseID:2574942)
----------------------

Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,

RE:  Mary Jane Smith PID # KWVQ-DBL

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Data Administration.  Mary Jane Smith no longer shows with William Smith as an incorrect spouse on new FamilySearch.  Thank you for bringing this concern to our attention.

RE:  Mary Jane Smith PID # KWVQ-DBL
        George Washington Schellenger PID # LC8M-SHB

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Data Administration.  We appreciate your diligence in maintaining accurate family history records.  Although, the Sealing to Spouse Ordinance for Mary Jane Smith to George Washington Schellenger may not be correct according to your records, the ordinance itself is considered valid.  To alert the submitter of the incorrect relationship, please begin a discussion on this record.  This way you may communicate with  the patron who completed the ordinance that the relationship is incorrect and prompt them to request the ordinance be removed.  Because temple ordinances have been completed, the request for removal of incorrect ordinances must come from the submitter.
Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration

----------------------
(CaseID:2579788)
----------------------

My response:

Thank you for removing William Smith as a spouse of Mary Jane Smith Gee.    I am well aware that the sealing of those individuals cannot be canceled.  It is unfortunate that errors creep in and ordinance work is done in error.  I have posted on my blog the following quote, “To err is human, to correct in New Family Search, divine.”

Unfortunately those who submit records, combine records, separate records, add data or change data do not always add complete contact information, or only an e-mail address and do not respond. 

I think I have adequately documented in my previous attachment that George Washington Gee II Person identifier: KWZG-Z41 is not the son of Mary Jane Smith Gee Person identifier: KWVQ-DBL and Geroge Washington Schellenger Person identifier: LC8M-SHB. He (George II) was sealed to George Washington Gee I Person identifier: KWVQ-DBG and Mary Jane Smith Gee Person identifier: KWVQ-DBL on 9 May 1894 in the Salt Lake Temple in person.  I will personally look at the record next week in the special collections to affirm that fact.

I have sent an e-mail to Stephen Erekson in order that we may collaborate on this issue. The first e-mail was not returned nor answered. Unfortunately the other two contributors do not have any contact information.

There are 64 combined records for George Washington Gee II, three of which have the name George Washington Schellenger.  I can correct this record by separating out these records. All three of these records M7RQ-LK1  MKMX-L6Q  9XSC-QSW have George Washington Schellenger and Mary Jane Smith listed as parents. This appears to be a loop. 

Stephen Erekson is only the contributor of one of these records the others have no contact information.

The following comments are found in discussions on George Washington Shellengeers record;

Relationship to child: George Washington GEE II Note: George W. Gee II is born before George W. Schellinger

1 year agobyJanice Peterson

Marriage: Mary Jane Smith 5 February 1837 <Stockholm, S-Lwrn, NY> Note: the child is born before parent George W. Schellenger. Also George Washington Gee II's father is George Washington Gee I. According to my records on this date she was married to George Washington Gee I. Schellenger is Mary Jane's grandmother's maiden name.Less

1 year agobyJanice Peterson

Relationship to spouse: Mary Jane Smith Note: the child is born before George W. Schellenger. Also George Washington Gee II's father is George Washington Gee I.

1 year agobyJanice Peterson

George Washington Schellenger has an unknown spouse with children attached.  All with the surname of Schellenger.

It appears to me that someone picked up Mary Jane Smith and attached her to George Washington Schellenger by mistake.  Since this is not my error I do not wish to find the correct spouse for George Washington Schellenger.  I have enough work to do trying to correct the errors on the Gee line, but would help anyone to find the correct individual. 

April 25, 2012

Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,

RE:  Deborah Huntley PID # LZVZ-PTP

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Data Administration.  Deborah Huntley no longer shows with Ebenezer Mack as an incorrect spouse on new FamilySearch.  Thank you for bringing this concern to our attention.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration


----------------------
(CaseID:2562541)
----------------------

Elias Gee in quadruplicate

In the Gee family Record in my possession there are four individuals named Elias Gee.

Elias Gee LH27-8V9 the son of Lysander Gee

Elias Smith Gee K2MC-SVS the son of George Washington Gee I

Elias Amos Gee KWZG-N1T the son of George Washington Gee II

Elias Amos Gee II KLM9-C5K the son of Elias Amos Gee

I have a watch placed on most of the Gee family in New Family Search.

On April 22, 2012 I received a notification that there was a change in the record of Elias Gee.  When I looked, someone had added a record to Elias Gee’s record.  I wrote the following e-mail;
Dear Jackie,

On the 17th of April you made a change to the Record of Elias Gee LZ25-B8G.  I would appreciate it if we could correspond about this matter.

Sincerely,

She wrote back. This is something unusual in my experience.  I usually do not get a response to my e-mails.

How can I help you?  How did I change the record?    I'd be happy to correct any error I may have made.  Jackie

My response was as follows:

The record that you added had Elias's father as George Washington Gee and unknown as the mother.  This is an easy mistake.  Elias was the son of Lysander Gee and Theresa Bowley.  Emma Gee Blomstrom (Lysander's granddaughter) states that Elias Amos died early. 

George Washington Gee II (Lysander's nephew) also had a son by the name of Elias Amos.  Born June 29, 1869 and died 26 April 1936 of Prostate Cancer. His wife was Francis M. Bean.

Lysander's son Elias died without issue

In the Papers of Lysander Gee he is listed only as Elias, the Amos has given rise to duplication with George Washington's son and grandson both, which carry the name Elias.

You have the correct dates in your record, but the incorrect Parents.  Your record number is LZ25-B8G.  There is also and incorrect record. MZ5J-ZK9 contributed by Family Search listing two sets of parents for Elias.  If you will remove George Washington II and unknown spouse from the record you submitted, I will get Family Search to remove George Washington II and unknown spouse as the parents of Elias.

Elias' cause of death was not stated.  He escaped the diphtheria epidemic in 1886. (See attached)

I would also be interested in knowing how you are related to the family.

Sincerely,

In answer to this e-mail Jackie responded:

Dear Laurence,

I have tried to delete George Washington Gee and each time I do I get the response, I cannot because there is more than one contributor.  If you could help me through it I will be only too glad to help in solving this issue.  I am sorry this has caused such a problem.  Jackie

I wrote her back as follows:

Dear Jackie,

I will have to work this through Family Search Support. With your permission I will work up a case and send you a copy.  This is something I do all the time. 

Elias Smith Gee Person identifier: K2MC-SVS has 11 combined records and all are correct.

Elias Amos Gee Person identifier: KWZG-N1T has 30 combined records and all are correct.

Elias Amos II Gee Person identifier: KLM9-C5K has 4 combined records and all are correct.

Elias Gee Person identifier: LH27-8V9 has 10 combined records and as noted above 2 list incorrect parents. They list George Washington Gee as a father when it should be Lysander Gee.

In George Washington Gee II Person identifier: KWZG-Z41 record he is listed with three spouses.  Sophina, Ursula and Unknown. With the unknown spouse there is one child, Elias Gee the subject of our discussion.

George Washington II did not have an unknown wife.  He only had two wives, Sophina and Ursula.  Both were named in his court documents for unlawful cohabitation, copies in my possession.

I hope that this is enough documentation to have Data Administration resolve this issue. 

This note was placed in the discussions in Elias’ record last year.

Confusion of Eilas

Description

Elias Gee MZ5J-ZK9 is a son of Lysander Gee and Theresa Bowley. He died without marrying at the age of 15. Because his name is Elias Gee he is often confused with his cousin Elias Amos Gee who married Francis Matilda Bean. Please contact me if you have any questions. Laurence.gee @gmail.com

Contributor

2 August 2011byIvin Laurence Gee

Elias Gee is my great grand uncle.

A return to the busy day at the office.

A return to the busy day at the office.

On my blog of April 15, I detailed the marriage of Salmon Gee to his mother in law. I e-mailed Support and today I received a reply;

Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,

RE: Solomon Gee PID # LZL9-B9S

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Data Administration. Solomon Gee no longer shows with Deborah De WOLF as an incorrect spouse on new FamilySearch. Thank you for bringing this concern to our attention.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration

----------------------
(CaseID:2562541)

An hour later I got another reply:

Dear Laurence Gee:

We looked at the record for Solomon Gee (MS5M-QHY) and we do not see Deborah De Wolf as a spouse to him. The record for Deborah DeWolf (KN65-2K4) does not list Solomon Gee as a spouse. It appears this issue has been resolved. If this is not the case, please let us know. Thank you.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration

----------------------
(CaseID:2565570)

I still had an issue to resolve so I replied:

Now all we have to do is get the Deborah Huntley Gee marriage to two Ebenezer Macks Person identifier: LZDX-SX5 and Person identifier: LZZ1-HRM spouses cleared up, Ebenezer Mack was married to Hannah Huntley Person identifier: KN65-VT7. Actually on his record he is married to two Hannah Huntleys, but I am not going there, because I am working on the Gee line. When we get this taken care of, I will work on her non-marriage to Robert Huntley, but that is a matter for another session.

Thanks you for straightening this out. I am attaching the file, which explains the non-marriage of Deborah Huntley Gee to Ebenezer Mack.

The link to this file is:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3pRqBw_zruORVFJV1E2UkJBZ2s/edit?pli=1

I was going to make a separate blog entry for this, but it fits in nicely here.

The following day, April 16^th I posted about Mary Gee in the merry mix-up. We might quote Shakespeare here, “All’s well that ends well.”

2559793
4/13/12 7:15 AM
Closed

Wrong daughter
Mary Gee Person identifier: L7F3-MHL is erroneously listed as a daughter of Augustus Gee Person identifier: KWJP-416 who was married to his wife Annie (Johanna Wilhelmina) Dahlquist (1857-1933) Person identifier: KWJN-56C on 28 December 1877 Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah.
Their first child Ida Louise Gee Person identifier: KWZW-BT9 was born 10 Nov 1878 in Batesville, Tooele, Utah.
Someone has added a child Mary Gee to this family. Person identifier: L7F3-MHL. Date of birth 31 may 1857.
Obviously this is an error as her father was born in 1854. This Mary E. Gee born in 1857. She is Augustus Gee’s sister who married Rudolph Thorp Luker.
I have e-mailed the contributor LucardieCharlane1 who has reserved the endowment ordinance for Mary E. Gee. Mary Person identifier: KWJP-41Z has already had these ordinances performed.
I have had no response to this e-mail.

Could you please rectify this error.
Sincerely,
Laurence Gee

Dear Ivan Laurence Gee

RE: Mary Gee PID # L7F3-MHL

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch. We were able to unlink Mary Gee from Agustus Gee and Anne (Johanna Wilhelmina Dahlquist as her mother. She now shows in nFS as having no parents or family. We wish you success in this sacred work.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration
----------------------
(CaseID:2559794)

Subject: Re: Wrong daughter

I combined the two records so that someone coming along would not try and
seal her to the wrong husband or duplicate any work. She now appears as record 25 in
the 27 combined records of Mary E. Gee Person identifier: KWJP-41Z.

Now a return to the Ruth Gee question. (See Friday the 13^th posting)

I received the following reply to my case:

Dear Laurence Gee,

RE: Ruth Gee PID # LZV8-PMF

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch.. Could you please spell out what it is that you would like to do with the record for Ruth Gee. It is difficult to discern exactly what it is that you would like for us to do.
We wish you success.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration
----------------------
(CaseID:2559240)

Obviously I was not specific in my posting this case information.

I wrote the following response:

Subject: Re: Wrong Ruth

Ruth Gee is not the daughter of Zopher Gee and his wife Esther Beckwith.
Please see the attached documentation in PDF format. Please remove her
from this family and place her with the proper family, She is the daughter
of Andrew Gee.

Andrew Gee Person identifier: 9N62-FBN is listed in NFS with Abigail Lane
his wife. Contributors to the record are Family Search. There are no
children or parents listed, so I assume that these names were found through
extraction.
I hope that this is proof enough that Ruth Gee was not the daughter of
Zopher and Esther and that we can remove her from this NFS family and put
it in the right place (daughter of Andrew Gee.

Please look at the attachment for documentation. I also have a 129 page
document of the descendants of John Gee which further documents that Ruth
Gee is the daughter of Andrew Gee and the wife of Morgan Owen which I can
e-mail to you as well.

Thanks,

Please let me know if you need further help from me.

Sincerely,

Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,

RE: Ruth Gee PID # LZV8-PMF

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch. We were able to unlink Ruth Gee from Zopher Gee and Esther Beckwith as her parents. She now shows in nFS as having no parents and is alone. You may add the correct parents for her. We wish you success in this sacred work.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration

----------------------
(CaseID:2559240)

I did not respond to this e-mail, but went straight to Ruth Gee’s record. I found her and put her in Andrew and Abigail Gee’s family (They are what I refer to as the New York Gees), as they had not a child listed. Then I connected her to her rightful husband Morgan Owen and found two of their children and attached them. I will leave this to someone else to finish unless I don’t find anything else challenging.

Now we await Support’s response to the non-marriage of Deborah Huntley and Ebenezer Mack. That may take a while for them to sort out.

A Mary (merry) mixup

On April 11^th I received the following e-mail from my cousin Janet Pollei.

I wish I were better at correcting these files so I could fix the problems I found today. In Agustus Gee’s file they have his sister Mary E. Gee #L7F3-MHL as a daughter. Someone is also doing her temple work! In the file for Mary Gee #KWJP-41Z it does not show her being sealed to Rudolph Thorp Luker. Yet I can access the file through Family Insight, and it shows her being sealed to him several times. Perhaps I should not worry about it, but it would be nice to see that sealing listed in NFS.

I thought I would try and tackle this problem so I worked up the e-mail to Family Search support and opened case # 2559794

For the complete saga go to the following link:

We hope now that Mary has found her right home.

I have not tried to edit records to show sealing ordinances that do not show up. I do not know that this is necessary. If someone tried to re-seal her to any of her three husbands, the systems is so designed to block that. We do have all those sealing dates in our personal database. When they finish making the changes on New Family Search, I think that all the sealing dates will show.

A busy day at the office

There are many incorrect records in New Family Search. I noticed a new one today. They had Solomon Gee's mother-in-law as his spouse. This appeared just recently. I didn't know that they could get married that fast. I opened a case in Feedback to Support at Family Search and entered the following in my e-mail to them:

There are 170 contributors to Solomon Gee’s record. All records are correct except the following:

Record MS5M-QHY (Solomon Gee) has two spouses listed 1. Deborah Huntley and 2. Solomon’s mother in law Deborah DeWolf.

Today, 15 April 2012, I separated this record out and put the following notation in the Discussions.
“This record has no combined records. It lists the correct spouse Deborah Huntley and an incorrect record spouse, Solomon's mother in law Deborah Huntley. Please do not combine”
Contributor 1 Contact name:FamilySearch
Contributor 2 Contact name:unknown4470317

There were 120 Combined records before I started. In the Ordinances tab the sealing of Deborah DeWolf to Solomon was READY. He should not be sealed to his mother-in-law as they were never married.

Could you please remove the incorrect spouse in this record?

Laurence Gee

Something is happening to the data in New Family Search. It is like a moving target. New challenges appear almost daily.

Ruth Gee indeed

In my last blog, I addressed the question of Ruth Gee being a daughter of Zopher and Esther Beckwith Gee and the sister of Salmon in New Family Search. I knew that was not right. I did a little sleuthing and came up with the answer.

You will find it at this link:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3pRqBw_zruONWVYcXRuN2ZzQ0k/edit

I have opened a case in Family Search Support and await their answer. Stay Tuned to this blog for the result.

In the meantime keep on doing the work.

Sophia Tinker/Gee Conclusion

I received the following e-mail today.

Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,

RE: Zopher Gee KWVX-4VQ
Esther Beckwith LHF7-QYG

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch Support. Zopher Gee and Esther Beckwith no longer show Sophia as a child. Thank you for bringing this concern to our attention.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch Data Administration


This concludes the Sophia Tinker episode. Now on to Ruth Gee. We will see what happens here.

From the Archives

Marlow Cemetery

Here is a link to some family photos of the Gee cemetery.

Click Here

Sophia Tinker/Gee

As I promised in the last sentence of my Caroline Gee McGavin Conclusion, I have launched into a new Adventure. You can read about The Sophia Gee Dilemma by clicking on the following link:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxseXNhbmRlcmdlZXdlYnNpdGV8Z3g6NTEwODdhYzNiN2UwZTU4OA

I then tried to solve the problem, which you can follow on the following link.

Solving the Sophia Gee Problem

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxseXNhbmRlcmdlZXdlYnNpdGV8Z3g6NmI2NDBiMTBkOTY1MDk1Zg

At the conclusion of this missive, I stated that I would contact Support for their assistance.

My e-mail to Support:

Zopher Gee KWVX-4VQ and Esther Beckwith Person identifier: LHF7-QYG are my fourth great grandparents.

There is listed a daughter Sophia that does not belong to this marriage. I have outlined this in two PDF files.

I will attach them to the automated reply because attachments cannot be sent with this e-mail to you.

I would appreciate your help in this matter. Esther Beckwith is the Daughter of Zenos Beckwith and Anna Harris. She only had three children by her marriage to Zopher Gee, viz, John, Salmon, and Esther. She died shortly after the death of Esther. Sophia was never a product of this marriage and she did not have an illegitimate daughter before she married Zopher.

Ivin Laurence Gee

I received a prompt reply.

Response from Support at Family Search:

Dear Brother Gee,

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch. We understand you are trying to remove the records of Sophia LCC6-8JH and Sophia MBM2-5DB as children of Zopher Gee KWVX-4VQ and Esther Beckwith LHF7-QYG. You indicated that you have documentation verifying that these individuals do not belong in that family. We see that there are multiple contributors to these records.

Your case has been reviewed and was forwarded to experts in the department for further examination. You will be contacted by them directly when they have completed their investigation. Please be aware that it may take some time before they are able to get back with you. No other action on your part is necessary. Please refrain from working on these records while they are under review.

As you may be aware, the Help Center, which is located on the home page and the bottom of each page in new.FamilySearch, is a great resource for finding the answers to most of your questions.

Thank you for your continuing patience and diligent participation as you work in the new FamilySearch.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch

I sent them PDF files of the above links. We will now await their response.

Caroline Gee McGavin The Conclusion

Please excuse the crazy fonts in this post. I will try and learn how to format.

Yesterday I had some time after my teaching assignment at the missionary department so I hiked up the hill to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum. They have a history department with donated histories of Utah Pioneers. Caroline Rowe Gee McGavin had some documents listed in the on-line catalog that I wanted to look at. I was able to find two histories in the archives there. Both were written by the same author, Jessie McGavin Loveland, Caroline’s daughter. They were identical to the history that I have given you a previous link to. Attached to one of the histories was a one-page document by her granddaughter Hattie Birch.

Here is the link

http://6452645681271931028-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/lysandergeewebsite/documents/Caroline%20by%20Hattie%20Birch.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7cooAqgDpbnX8DkVtClRMs_YnQ3vOl_d4azpmKT6KgEzDbzwUlyY7NdzGD8mDvJG82Fqv8KJ8RGRfYbUu-8VxbWngWsx38nuTgSwntW1-lvbAEzzmq9Orxev8Hdl9xHzl7qrA2r0NICdRAi_MdfK5yNvEP5W3MOD2X-vaZYmEL6Y3WtiU__ZorxW3HpnhWcdaDEHn7S-Ib1gotNAjNy7mK6q1TUgv94muSqAIoPQel6iEt9od3U%3D&attredirects=0

Then this morning I received the following from Support at Family Search.

Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,
We have edited the record for Caroline Rowe Gee PID KWCV-H3F and have removed the relationship to Francis Gates PID LH52-317 as her spouse.

Thank you for bringing this problem to our attention. Best wishes in all your Family History endeavors.

FamilySearch Data Administration

My response was, Thank you.

To err is human (to forgive to correct in New Family Search, divine)

I now think that we can put this to bed and I will now move on to the Sophia Gee/ Tinker Dilemma. Stay tuned.

An e-mail from my cousin Lamont

In trying to find out where the misinformation about Frances Gates as a spouse of Caroline Gee came from I wrote an e-mail to my cousin Lamont. His father, Lynn, was the premier genealogist of the siblings in his family.

Dear Lamont,

I suppose that you still have your father's genealogy records. Here is a problem that I came upon. Perhaps you could look at the family group sheet that he submitted and see if there is documentation as to where he got the information.

I then attached the e-mail that I sent to Family Search Support.

Here is his reply:

Laurence,

Dad was not very good at documenting his sources. Much of what he got was found at the family history library in Salt Lake and, I think, from various paper records collected from here and there and everywhere.
There isn't any way for me to backtrack to a source. So, if you are confident of your information then, by all means, make the corrections as you deem appropriate.

LaMont

Comment:
Historically there were two separate calls for members of the church to submit four generations of family group sheets to the church. This was called the four generation program. Thousands of sheets were submitted and collected and organized by surname in binders and were available to members of the church. When I saw the collection it was on the East wing of the second floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial building.

Volunteers took those records and entered each sheet into a computer database. This became known as the Ancestral File. It was not uncommon for people to copy the sheets and make that part of their personal database. There was little data quality control of the submitted sheets. Thus if the data was entered onto a sheet, it was considered correct. There was quality control of the data entered into the computer by the volunteers, but no checking of sources. Thus if someone submitted a sheet with erroneous information it would be perpetuated in private databases from the submitted sheets or from information from the Ancestral file.

A good example of this is the birth place of Lysander Gee. He was born in Austinburg, Ashtabula, Ohio but if you look in New Family Search and some of the records in Ancestral file you will find a birth place of Hanover, New York. Thus when these computer databases were combined to produce New Family Search all of these records were merged into one individual record perpetuating the misinformation.

Another case was that of Stephen Gee, the son of Solomon Gee, who was listed both as a male and a female. After submitting proof of his maleness, NFS wrote the following:
Dear Ivin Laurence Gee,
Re: Stephen Gee- PID (L7ZP-M7M)
Because the record with the incorrect gender was submitted by one individual, the record for Stephen Gee showing the wrong gender no longer appears in new Family Search. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Sincerely,
FamilySearch Data Administration

It takes a lot less time to submit the correct information than it does to change it once it is in the NFS database.

I believe it is our generation's responsibility to correct the records to reflect the true information. This will take patience, persistence and long-suffering on our part, but we now have many of the tools necessary to obtain the correct information.