Can't attach source because the female head of household was incorrectly listed as Male

Shannon Agee

My ancestor was incorrectly listed as a male head of household in the 1940 census and then indexed as a male. FamilySearch won't let me attach it to her, only to her husband. I have tried changing the focus person and doing the "slide" from one person to another but it won't let me, I assume because they don't want me to attach a record for a "male" to a "female".

So how can I fix this?

Gordon Collett

There are two ways to do this. I'll illustrate both for you but leave it for you to complete for practice:

When first entering the source linker from the son's source page and the "Unfinished Attachements" link, the page looks like this:

First change the focus person on the left to Elizabeth using the blue bar's Change link:

Only then, change the focus person on the right to Elizabeth:

Then proceed to attach the source. The order of changing the focus people makes a big difference.

If the Source Linker is being particularly stubborn or you are getting frustrated because things are shifting around in weird ways or if you need to attach a non-family member, or grandchild, or uncle in an obituary or something so the person to attach the source to is not on the right side at all, the following always works.

Again, start by getting the Elizabeth in the source to be the focus person on the left:

Then copy the ID number of the Elizabeth you want to attach the source to, click on Change on the right, and paste in the ID number:

Click the arrow to put that person as the focus person:

Proceed to attach the source:

Julia Szent-Györgyi

I went to one of the kids (Irene) and clicked the Unfinished Attachments link. This brings up Source Linker. I clicked "Change" on the left and chose Elizabeth. Then I clicked "Change" on the right and again chose Elizabeth, and the source lined right up: https://www.familysearch.org/search/linker?ark=/ark:/61903/1:1:K4FD-GJV&id=L6Y9-89D.

I closed out without making any changes, because I don't know whether you want to deal with the 1935 residence or not, and because you should have the chance to try doing it yourself.

DebDT

Are these the directions below that you used? If not try these? If these did not work, please provide more information. We need the PID numbers of your ancestors that you are trying to attach and detach the source.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-move-sources-to-a-different-person-in-family-tree

Shannon Agee

The record is not incorrectly attached, it is attached to everyone but the head of household. Elizabeth Galbraith, L6Y9-89D, is the head of household, she is incorrectly listed on the census record as a male. The PID number of her son is L6Y9-6Y9, it is correctly attached to him. The census record is https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89M1-7Z6L?i=17&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AK4FD-GJV

Gordon Collett

I have never run across a case where you cannot manually get the Source Linker to line up properly and have had no problem attaching a person incorrectly indexed as one sex to the actual person in Family Tree showing with the correct sex.

If you post the person ID for the person showing the 1940 census hint, I'd be happy to take a look and either show you how to accomplish the correct attachment or confirm for FamilySearch support that this is impossible and needs to be fixed.

Shannon Agee

Gordon Collett- The record is attached to everyone but the head of household. Elizabeth Galbraith, L6Y9-89D, is the head of household, she is incorrectly listed on the census record as a male. The PID number of her son is L6Y9-6Y9, it is correctly attached to him. The census record is https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89M1-7Z6L?i=17&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AK4FD-GJV

I went back into FamilySearch and tried again to slide the record to the correct person but as she is listed as the father it won't do it, for me at least. If you are able to rectify this that would be great.

Gordon Collett

The only Help Center article I can find about changing the focus person, https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-attach-the-other-people-in-a-record-hint-in-family-tree, does not go into these fine details that order of changing the focus person makes a difference or the use of the GoTo box. But these are important points that need to be added to the help article.

This one does talk about dragging people on the left, but not about changing the focus person: https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-attach-record-hints-in-family-tree

These should be combined and improved with the missing information. I've run across a lot of people who have run into the same frustrating situation you have.

dontiknowyou

Hi Shannon Agee. Gordon Collett and Julia Szent-Györgyi gave you exactly the same procedure I use for this problem.

Shannon Agee

Thank you all for the help. I have changed the focus person on the right side many times but had never seen the change on the left side. This fixed the problem. Again thanks for the knowledge and help!

dontiknowyou

That Help Center article really needs to go into more detail, or link to a spin-off article. Swapping the left (historical record) side of the Source Linker is a topic that comes up often here.