Duplicate Source * Please Help so I don't go crazy LOL!

Judithbaker

I like to use the help in the Family Search Overview, "Recommend Tasks, Records" It is a wonderful help and I'm glad it is there.

If you click on a person, it wil take you to their profile and give you a list of records that might be a correct source for you to review and attach or reject. Often it suggests that you attach the same source multiple times (sometimes twice but I have seen it suggest the same record three or four times). Do you know why this is? Are they different lists?

I'm a little OCD and like to have everything cleaned up nicely and it makes me "crazy" LOL to have a suggestion hanging and not do anything with it. Is it okay if you attach them all? Is this a computer glitch that needs to be reported? Can you dismiss a duplicate record without hurting anything? If it really is a different record and I can't tell would I be throwing away information? What is the best course of action?

Below is an example for Marshal Callaway Camp asking to attach the US WWI Draft registration card twice.

Carla Tobler

@Judithbaker

You are asking some excellent questions about record hints. Here is a link to an article from the Help Center that we believe will answer those questions.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/what-do-i-do-with-duplicate-record-hints-in-family-tree

The article explains why duplicate record hints exist, and what to do about them.

We hope this helps.

Judithbaker

Thanks! I'll read it now.

Gordon Collett

To take the information in the referenced article and apply it to your specific exam, let's take a look at the two "duplicate" sources.

If you click on the first hint for the WW1 draft registration card, click review and attach, and on that screen click Record, then click open in new window, you will see that the URL for that source is: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZZL-MF8

Do the same for the other hint and you will see that the URL is: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:745S-N66Z

Compare the final portions and you will see that these are two different sources and both should be attached. This gives the Family Tree program information that all the information in both hints applies to that Marshall and gives the program more information to find more sources for you.

If you mark one of the hints as not-a-match, you have just told the program that the information does not apply to that Marshall and it will start ignoring other sources that are for him, because you told it that information was wrong for him. So do attach all these sources that really are correct.

Now why are there two sources with the same information? The reasons can vary. Sometimes the same records were filmed twice. Sometimes they were indexed twice. Sometimes the same collection came from two different places. I'm not sure what the case is in this situation. The images look so identical, even to the way the cards are slightly slanted, that it looks like the same filming.

The document information is a little different, but has the same digital folder number and image number:

I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

It does look like it was indexed twice because the indexed information is more complete in one compared to the other:

To summarize, these are two different source citations that should both be attached even though they will both take you to the same actual source, that is, the same image of the actual record.