Around the time that v6.0 was released, I was contacted by FamilySearch asking if we were interested in working more closely together to provide a solution to integrate Gramps and FamilySearch. This would probably involve transferring data through the FamilySearch public API.
I am aware that there have been previous efforts to use the FamilySearch API and we have attempted to contact the previous contributors, but without luck so far. Reading our mailing list archive, I believe that these efforts may have stalled because of a perceived high bar to meet FamilySearch requirements and perhaps the lack of encouragement from our own development team.
If there were some commitment from FamilySearch and me, would anyone be interested in developing, testing or using such an integration? I will progress pursue this further if people are interested.
I use Family Search and Find A Grave extensively. An import feature
would be nice, but I think there is way too much noise in their data to
make it truly useful.
For testing - A few years ago I used a script program (don’t remember
the name) which will go to FS and download some portion of the tree to a
GEDCOM. I imported the GEDCOM, perhaps 20 or 30 people, then went
through editing all of the problems. Place names, bad dates, missing
data - there was a bunch. Then I restored a backup and did it all over
again by manually entering the same data. It took just about the same
amount of time either way.
It might be nice to be able to click a button in a browser addon which
screen-scrapes the current profile. I think there would still be a lot
of data correction, especially for place names. It would not bring in
custom events. It would probably miss some events such as marriage and
divorce.
I think any kind of direct import from FS will not save either time or
effort.
The sync tool in programs like Legacy allows for manual synchronization with FamilySearch. You can choose which data you trust and want to import, and the sync works in both directions. If you come across incorrect information in an entry, you don’t have to import it — or you can go directly to FamilySearch and correct it there.
It’s important that anyone making changes also explains why. When a correction is well justified, it’s rarely overwritten. I’ve done this many times with details about my own ancestors and relatives.
So, the process isn’t as “random” as it might seem, and it doesn’t need to be fully automated like a GEDCOM export. In fact, I believe one of FamilySearch’s requirements for sync integrations is exactly that: they expect a clearly defined process where users can manually review and resolve data conflicts before anything is imported or updated.
As an example: Whenever I’ve uploaded or downloaded data to Legacy, I’ve always used the manual sync option. It’s also possible to search for individual persons in the sync interface and manually select the correct person and sources. When doing so, you’re prompted whether you want to transfer spouses, parents, and children if they exist — and you need to manually choose the correct individuals, whether it’s one entry, multiple entries, or duplicates. This can be done in both directions — from Legacy to FamilySearch and vice versa.
The sync interface also shows all matches for a person, allowing you to review and select specific data from each match in a single operation. You can choose which facts to transfer — for instance, if you have a more precise place name for a residence or event in your local database, you don’t need to overwrite it with the FamilySearch version. The same applies to names and spelling variations: you can keep the names you’ve already recorded locally, and optionally add the FamilySearch variant as an AKA (also known as) or alternate name.
Note: This text was originally written in Norwegian by the author and translated to English, with light editing for clarity and flow by Copilot.
Just to be clear for my brain. Would this tool go out and find a FamilySearch person profile and then copy back into gramps all attached source/cit material, or, based on the gramps profile go to FamilySearch and retrieve all matching source/citation records so you can select the ones you want. Or something else??
I have to agree with Bill both Family Search and Ancestry have so much
of their records filled with errors because their transcribers or OCR
systems were so poor that it is quicker and more accurate to do it
manually yourself from the original images.
“Places” you can forget about, the number of times that I have had to
delete Manchester Jamaica and replace with Manchester Lancashire alone
would guarantee I would not use scraped data.
phil
If it would work like the one in Legacy, you will connect to Familysearch via the GUI (you will need to log in with a FS user account), select what to do, e.g. a single person, get all data that’s “in a range” and select the ones you want, then your person will be “in sync” with the person id on FS, and you can easily see any changes later or easily update the FS record if you do changes locally…
The tool in Legacy is actually really powerful…
You can also choose to upload all your local entries and match them to entries on FS, but this takes a long time and I never got it to actually work, I always had to manually change the matches and all the data, so I only do it manually, person by person, and only for the people I am researching at the time…
I cannot recommend any “bulk download” of data via the sync feature…
not an answer to your question, just how it works in another software and how I hope it to be implemented in Gramps…
In the sync tool in Legacy, you can do all this manually — you don’t need to import any data you don’t want. You’re in full control of what gets transferred, and the sync works both ways.
It is totally different from downloading a GEDCOM through a scraping script. With proper sync integration, you’re not blindly pulling in data. You can search for individual persons, review all matches, and select exactly which sources and facts to import. You’re also prompted whether you want to transfer spouses, parents, and children — and you manually choose the correct individuals, even when there are duplicates.
You can even decide which version of a fact to keep. For example, if you have a more precise place name or spelling variation in your local database, you don’t have to overwrite it with the FamilySearch version. You can keep your own data and optionally add the FamilySearch variant as an AKA.
This kind of manual sync is designed to support accuracy and user control — not automation for automation’s sake. It’s a completely different process than scraping or bulk GEDCOM imports, and I think it’s important to keep that distinction clear when discussing integration.
A year ago or so Enno Borg got me to try RootMagic. You could load your gramps db to it and then sync it with Ancestry and FS. However, you had to go into Ancestry or FS, make changes such as adding source/citations and then initiate a sync. You had to approve each “new” record to be added to the RootMagic database. Same process with FS. Enno then had a process to sync it back to gramps.
I tried it, but it was three times more work than what I was already doing. And I did not want to maintain a tree on FS. So after giving it a try, I abandoned the effort. Currently I support a tree on Ancestry because the hints presented from the others it quite useful to breaking brick walls. I only use the other sites to look for supporting documents. So to answer @Nick-Hall question, a FS syncing feature would be no use to me.
Currently, I use the WebSearch addon Gramplet to both search its archives and lookup linked Persons in its Universal Tree.
WebSearch can flow Vital Stats from the Gramps data model into several FS search forms. And it also uses an arbitrarily labeled Person Attribute to store the EXID to support its feature to lookup by known ID.
This approach clutters up the custom types in Attributes… with multiple custom types for each external database. For instance, FamilySearch has separate IDs for Ancestors, Families, Sources, Places, Users on their service and more. And since you have to scroll through a 1-dimensional menu, a large set of external services becomes quickly becomes an un-navigable pop-up menu.
And that is without considering that there are duplicates that probably need merging for the “Universal Tree”. And FS recently introduced a new feature called the User Owned Tree or Controlled Edit Tree (CET), which allows users to create and manage their own private family trees on the platform.
Before integrating with any external database, I think that Gramps needs to expand the Data Model to support the Gedcom7 IDENTIFIER_STRUCTURE with REFN, UID and EXID that include a TYPE as well as a value. Without that, we lose access to a lot of the analytical power of a database.
I am MOST interested in logging a usable cross-reference … so that I can quickly look at the other database and eliminate the need to immediately replicate all the data in that database.
At least… I don’t want to transcribe that detailed data in Gramps until after each fact is verified. While we cannot be confident that the Relationship conclusions are correct in those external databases, the sources cited are almost always worth new examination. And the Source contributors may be distant relatives who are tracing the same tree. (Unless the researchers are LDS family history missionaries working on their calling.)
The sync function are not only a sync function as it is in Legacy today, it is a lot more, all you need to do is to link up the people you want to download information about, you do not ever need to upload any data if you dont want to or need to…, but you need to link the objekt you want to download information for, to get the data and write update your local object, if you dont have an object local and you downloadf it, it will be linked to its original FS-object with the correct FS-ID…
This will also help you to find back the information that you have used on FS for that person…
So, you don’t need to maintain an online tree at FS, if you don’t want to… just link the object with an ID…
I have not tested out RM’s version of the FS interface, so I cannot say if there is something else going on there…
Legacy is free now, so for anyone that wants to test it out, it is possible to do so if you have a Windows installation hidden away somewhere…
I also agree that it cannot be some function that auto-sync or where we are forced to upload our data…
—
note: I do not know if FS upload or log more than your user_id, you need to log in and accept that Legacy get access to your profil before you start using the interface, but if that log or upload anything more, I don’t know… never cared to check, but I have never seen anyone mention it…
I would very much welcome a connection between Gramps and FamilySearch. Of course, one has to be careful what data is integrated into one’s family tree there. There are a lot of fanciful family trees out there.
However, there have also been many bright spots when I’ve hit a dead end, and FamilySearch has at least shown me the way forward.
It’s not just fanciful family trees there, either. I would be interested in the private family tree feature. After all, FamilySearch would make my data available to everyone even after my death. Who knows what my own family might do with it?
I’ve also spent days going through microfilms, which are thankfully almost all available digitally these days. Perhaps a link or a copy of the marriage record found in Gramps would be possible. There are certainly many other useful things that could be done between Gramps and FamilySearch.
So yes, I would welcome it and would also test it.
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