Forum:Standardization of records

So, I have been pondering... A Genealogy Wiki is so cool! :D But how do we link everyone together so that once you connect to a family, you aren't entering new pages for all the folks that are already here from another persons' family? For example: Let's say I have a Joe Smith, he was born in 1711 and died in 1760. I make a record for Joe and put in all the details. Later another researcher puts their tree here online, they, too have Joe Smith, so they make a record called "Joe Smith (1711-1760)", since that isn't exactly like my Joe Smith, a new record is created. Worse, their Joe Smith had three sons, my family is related through Kate Smith, Joe's daughter, but theirs is related through Joe Smith Jr, the son. So their record is Joe Smith I. How can we kind of "funnel" people into editing my Joe Smith instead of making a new Joe Smith? I've been thinking about how to make records work well (I have Stewarts in my family, a lot of them... and they love to name themselves "James"... so I have, literally, 20 James Stewarts... I'm going to have to do something to differentiate them). Is there a standard we can sort of encourage researchers to use so that all of the records mesh nicely? Personally, I've been using GivName FamName(bdate-ddate) as my naming convention, that pretty much gives a unique record for each person, and allows for a ton of "James Stewart"s (And it looked like other folks were doing that too, so I'm kinda following suit). Is this even a concern? Again, I'm really new to the Genealogy Wiki... so...erm... Thoughts? :D Aabh 21:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)