Cleaning Up Records

I have had questions asking what I mean by “cleaning up the family history records” for my family. Since most of my family lines go back to the very early days of the Church when we were first taught to do family history research, my enthusiastic family members and their posterity have collected the same information many times over. Most of it is correct but some may have inconsistencies.

When I look at a person’s record in FamilySearch Family Tree, I check to make sure there are no duplicate records for the person and I check to make sure all of the ordinances have been completed. I look at all the dates and try to make sure they are consistent—the birth before the death, parents born before children, and so forth. I also make sure the dates and place names are in the standardized form FamilySearch uses. I try to organize the sources into groups so it is easy to see what evidence has been found—Vital Records, Census Records, Records for other family members that list a relationship to this person, and other records, such as immigration, military, etc.

I then check FamilySearch and Ancestry.com to make sure I have attached all the records I can find, at least the ones easily available. So far there have been enough sources on the records I have looked at that I feel the information on the records is properly documented. If I were to find someone who had only a few sources or information that is not documented, I would search other websites to determine if I can find sufficient evidence to make a good case for the information on the record or provide missing information.

This is an imperfect attempt to make the records more acceptable and is by no means intended to set the standard for others.