Based on years of genealogy experience and combined with genealogy research strategies developed at Brigham Young University, a computer program was developed by MyTrees.com to calculate the data quality of every person and family found within a genealogy database. This data has been prioritized into four key quality search indicators. When you do a search at MyTrees.com you are given the opportunity to select one of the following four options to identify which data quality priority is important in your search. The Four Options are:

• Generations: The number of generations in the selected pedigree beyond the search individual. (Default Setting)
• Ancestors: The number of ancestors in the selected pedigree beyond the search individual.
• Completion: The percent of major fields (e.g. birth, marriage, death -- dates and places) filled in with data for the selected pedigree.
• Documentation: The average number of characters (bytes) of notes and historical information per record (individual and family) over the selected pedigree.

Example of Lynda Barnes Search Results List

BARNES, LYDIA - Died: 1778, Father: BARNES, THOMAS, Mother: HOWE, MARY

View pedigree ma000066 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 74 generations, 9999 ancestors, 65% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree boyd4 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 11 generations, 150 ancestors, 63% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree nemanic1 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 6 generations, 147 ancestors, 64% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree ja000268 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 6 generations, 128 ancestors, 67% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree ca000489 - Died: USA
Data Quality: 6 generations, 101 ancestors, 71% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree crume - Died: MA
Data Quality: 6 generations, 88 ancestors, 63% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree wolfe1 - Died: MASSACHUSETTS
Data Quality: 5 generations, 99 ancestors, 57% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree homer2 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 5 generations, 90 ancestors, 72% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree mortens1 - Died: MASSACHUSETTS
Data Quality: 5 generations, 82 ancestors, 67% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree ellis3 - Died: WORCESTER
Data Quality: 5 generations, 82 ancestors, 55% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree li000194 - Died: MASSACHUSETTS
Data Quality: 5 generations, 81 ancestors, 56% completed fields, limited documentation.
View pedigree co000404 - Died: MASSACHUSETTS
Data Quality: 5 generations, 36 ancestors, 75% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree hamilto3 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 5 generations, 31 ancestors, 60% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree geer1 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 5 generations, 15 ancestors, 70% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree monson1 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 4 generations, 88 ancestors, 65% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree mo000253 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 4 generations, 88 ancestors, 59% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree rex1 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 3 generations, 53 ancestors, 68% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree ol000101 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 3 generations, 36 ancestors, 63% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree flowers - Died: MA
Data Quality: 3 generations, 27 ancestors, 67% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree melville - Died: MA
Data Quality: 3 generations, 27 ancestors, 66% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree w7670068 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 3 generations, 26 ancestors, 66% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree s7669973 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 2 generations, 4 ancestors, 75% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree timm1 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 2 generations, 4 ancestors, 65% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree ja000271 - Died: MA
Data Quality: 1 generations, 8 ancestors, 65% completed fields, no documentation.
View pedigree penrod1 - Died: MASSECHUSETTS
Data Quality: 1 generations, 2 ancestors, 61% completed fields, limited documentation.

Another area of data quality improvement is providing you the ability to easily adjust up or down the number of persons found within a given search list. MyTrees.com realized that as our archive grew beyond the 1 billion-name mark, we would need to provide search technology that lets you focus quickly on the exact person for which you are searching. MyTrees.com has now implemented expanded search capabilities, allowing you to include search fields based on a family footprint (parents and spouses), date ranges, event places, selecting a given archive with newly arriving data, and three different field types for a search, including birth, death, and marriage. To view this advanced search screen format, please click to the Ancestry Archive Search Screen.

Family History Database management on the Internet and within CD-ROM products has also become a critical data quality issue for keeping your updates accessible. With most web sites and CD-ROM manufacturers, the ability to share your GEDCOM file for viewing has become quite popular. But as you may have seen over time, making changes, additions, and updates, reflecting your most recent research work has fallen short of your expectations. Having multiple copies of the same GEDCOM database file on the Internet or within a CD-ROM has caused a database management nightmare. You may be contacted as the submitter of information that has now been changed and has been updated five or ten times over the past few years. You now have to identify which version of your database you are being asked to support and then refer the inquirer to your most recent update. On MyTrees.com there is now a way for this person to identify your most recent update from your older updates.

At MyTrees.com we assume that you will continue to be the owner and manager of your data. Therefore we provide you managed access to your database for adding, updating, or replacing data from within a free member account. When you upload a GEDCOM file to MyTrees.com you are given the choice of adding a new file or replacing an existing file. When you update your existing file at MyTrees.com, the old database is completely replaced with your new database. It is re-indexed within a few days and all older data is replaced by your new database. There is no older version left behind for you to deal with later. Through the use of MyTrees online you can also make additions and changes to your data directly online from your web browser. MyTrees online gives you full database management capabilities of appending new data to an existing on-line file, removing old data, and merging duplicate family trees. MyTrees online is an excellent place to keep an emergency copy of your database so if you should loose yo ur copy at home - say through a disk crash - you can download a copy from the MyTrees online site.

All data management services at MyTrees.com are free to use at any time. You are now able to do global searches with over 1 billion names, knowing that we have done our best to minimize long search lists, unnecessary redundancy of data, and have provided increased quality of data displayed to save you time and effort in your genealogy research.