Help with "FamilySearch Matches"

Question

Using "FamilySearch Matches" you only have the option of "Certain" or "Uncertain." Is there anyway to remove the possible matches that are not correct?

**Update** To Rob's point, I want to clarify. I'm referring removing the "possible matches" that show on the "Match WikiTree Watchlist to FamilySearch Family Tree" page, that you know are not "Certain" matches and don't qualify as you being "Uncertain" because they clearly are not the same person. These are just clutter on the search page. Thanks again for the help! -Josh

Answer 1

Not sure what you're asking here, can you explain further?

I use FamilySearch matches to support profiles quite extensively, but you do need to ensure the right person has been selected. That normally involves building the family on FS first, taking care that birth, marriage and death records for all members are consistent. Where there is inconsistency (say, later children born in a different place to earlier children as an example) some proof that they moved house should be found via Census records or similar.

A red flag for me is a family with members born all over the place, or a family built with no proof of the mother's surname, or a missing marriage record.

Does that help at all?

Comments

Rob,

Understood and yes it does. I have been researching a long time. I'm new to WikiTree. I am slow to enter my information over here even though I like a lot of the tools. I have only entered through me and my wife's grandparents and I am playing with it through there for the moment. FamilySearch pulled in a few matches. Clearly I know these family member very well. I can link what is correct and I can recognize those few that are either A) incorrect information or B) just a different person all together. I honestly have no interst in doing extra work by entering data in FamilySearch.org just to link it to WikiTree. However, if someone has data over there, I have no problem linking it and either giving them credit for something I may not have or them being able to find information that I have gathered oer the 2 decades I have been researching my family. Ultimately, I am just curious, if these suggestions of "possible matches" just always sit there when I know them to be to not be a match, or is there a way for me to decline them as a match. If they always sit there, it's just clutter.

I hope this helps clarify a little. Maybe I'm still a little all over the place. LOL.

Josh

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I guess the answer is fairly obvious. Link in the data at FS that matches what you know AND can be supported by citations. I don't know why you'd even consider linking anything else. Once you get back beyond your own memory (ancestors from the 19th century, for instance) proof in the form of BDM records and newspaper references become far more vital.

We don't work with "possible matches" here at all.

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BTW I still didn't quite understand what you were on about until I read the link provided in Samantha's answer below. I've been here over 18 months and never used that tool, all my profiles have been entered manually.

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Rob,

No worries. What little I have done floating around FS, there are many errors and incorrect assumptions made about connection in my family pre-1900. Oddly, there my line is not represented well here on WikiTree either. The matching tool was just something I was playing with as I've taken the new "tool" for a test drive and I found it odd that I could say that a match was certain or uncertain but I couldn't say that it was not a match. That's all. Samantha hit the nail on the head with her explanation. Basically, there just no database to store the rejected information. Thanks again Rob!

-Josh

Answer 2

In the answer to this similar question https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/797736/can-we-please-have-a-not-a-match-option-in-the-fs-matches-tool the creator of the FamilySearch matches app says:

"What's preventing me from adding a "Not A Match" option is that there's no where to store the data. WikiTree added a place to their database and API for storing positive matches, but there's presently no place to store negative matches."

Comments

Samantha, Thanks! I'm not sure I've found this tool to be useful yet but it was interesting to see the link between the tw sites. I'm sure I will find it to be more beneficial as I enter more of my ancestors. I'm still starting small. -Josh

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I found it helpful for providing sources to people that I've added through a gedcom--it lets me transfer over and review the data linked to a profile (click the 'update wikitree' link) and I can list the sources that are on that site and link them together so that others can get to the sources as well.  (I'm not sure it's it's totally best practice, but it's easier to do a stable link to dynamic resources than to worry a lot about updating the individual resource links in multiple places if they change.)  

Here's one i just updated a day or so ago:  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Guillou-39

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Josh, just think how helpful it will be for some distant relative to be searching on familysearch and find a link to wikitree with even better information.  Thats my motivation for linking.

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Jonathan,

No doubt. I linked what is correct because I agree completely. I was only looking for a way to cleanup those "possible matches" that are clearly not matches. Thanks!

Josh