Not a good idea to let the program choose the "Possible Family Tree Match" person.
Two times now I have hit on the button, "Attach To Family Tree" and the program has gone ahead and added the "Possible Family Tree Match" person as though it is the correct person I am seeking, when in fact it is not. If one is not paying attention one could go off on an incorrect family line.
Answers
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When one selects 'Attach To Family Tree' - ONE is asserting that the record SHOULD be attached to the person indicated. The program is just doing what you have selected for it to do. So yes - people should be educated that is what occurs. If the record is in fact 'NOT a match' for the person indicated - then 'DISMISS MATCH' should be selected instead. One does need to pay attention when matching/attaching Record Hints to persons in the Tree.
There may be date, location or family relation details in the record which indicate the record obviously is NOT a match to the person in the Tree
OR
perhaps the person in the Tree already has some conflation that needs to be sorted (since this is a shared world Tree persons may get conflated quite easily due to varying levels of care users take in research/attaching of records). Luckily the Tree application(s) also allow you to DETACH records if attached in error to an incorrect person (as long as Source Linker is functioning properly).
I do agree that it would be nice if the application(s) could better/more easily indicate the status of a person's Tree representation as to uniqueness (not conflated) - which it currently attempts through the Possible Duplicates feature
AND
completeness (depth of records attached) - which is not really indicated except in Sources.
I guess the theory for a shared world Tree goes something like - if you create a person in Tree, create them with as much depth of records as possible, so that it is less likely to be mistaken for someone else. However, due to this 'open-edit' structure anyone may make a change to good information and make it bad/worse OR vice versa.
I wish there were an easier way to indicate or NOT suggest record hints to obviously incorrect possible matches (reduce the 'spam' in Record Hints) - but I don't think the records nor the Tree is in a great/organized state for that to occur well - so it has been currently designed that the Tree users get to decide. I also wish it were possible that users could assert some 'level' of uniqueness/completeness to their own contributions of individual persons in the Tree - meaning that it would be more difficult for another Tree user to change good representations of persons to bad. Basically we are told 'don't worry' - it will all get sorted out over time. My point though - why allow it to become conflated/'mixed up' in the first place ...
Oh well, I guess one cannot expect Family Tree perfection ... even if they are your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents ...
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I assume you are referring to this screen:
I agree this is a very hazardous part of Family Tree. It would be nice to have more warnings and encouragement to take a look at the suggested match and thoroughly evaluate it, something along the lines of the three step process for merges. Just clicking Add Match because the program suggests this unknown person can mess up families and lead users sadly astray.
My personal workflow in this situation is to never click Add Match (there is, of course, the rare exception to this), but rather click on the suggested match's name to open that page in a new tab. Then I go ahead and click Create Person and finish adding the person I am creating. Then I start comparing my new person to the suggested person and do sufficient research to determine whether I should merge them or not.
Replacing Add Match with View this Possible Duplicate could make this safer.
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Oh, I thought this post was referring to Attaching records to the Tree (Record Hints/Tasks):
Side Note (my opinion): Because the Tree is relatively thin on person completeness (meaning most people don't have too many historical records to attach) - the completeness is generally left to vital records (birth, marriage, death) - which makes it much easier to confuse people. I don't really know a way around this limitation for a shared Tree - other than carefully referencing the records for the person(s) in the location referenced when they were created (meaning if a record exists then it obviously belongs to a unique someone somewhere in the Tree at a specific location and date in history). Extracting as much data from the record(s) to related persons referenced in the record(s) will hopefully help - those that are careful - distinguish between persons.
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I, like @genthusiast also thought your comment was about the obviously large Attach to Family Tree button that has been provided in the comment just above my post.
While I appreciate that we can all easily make mistakes that are unintentional, it seems to me that a large button is a great feature to help us avoid attaching a record to someone it should not be attached to. I, for one, am grateful to know that if we want to learn more about the record the system believes might be a match, all we have to do is click the Name just above the Attach button, and we are taken to the Summary card for that person. From there we can click Person to review the details about the person. I believe this process will avoid having to "undo" attaching something by mistake since we can review the details about the person before ever attaching the Historical Record.
We can also click the paper clip to the far right. Doing so will allow us to use the Source Linker. If we carefully review everything on both the record side and the Family Tree side of the Source Linker, I believe we are not likely to make incorrect connections.
Each user must work with any software within the algorithms of that program. Learning about how to work in Family Tree is no exception to that rule. As we take the time to go to the Help Center to read the knowledge articles about attaching records to our ancestors, we will be less likely to make unwanted errors. There are a variety of knowledge articles that might be helpful.
Thanks so much for your welcome reminder that we must pay attention to what we do in Family Tree if we wish to provide accurate information about our ancestors.
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I would have made similar comments to Gordon, though we are almost certainly wrong about the nature of this issue!
The trouble is, if - like me - you never look at your Home page, you get very confused when other users raise matters that relate to items found there. When I have looked there, I have never found any suggestions of use, especially as I prefer to do research in a way that suits me - which generally excludes hints and "possible matches" offered by FamilySearch.
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Actually, the button with the large Attach to Family Tree which I described in my comments is not found on the Home Page. It is found on the right side of any Historical Record's details page you are looking at. There are always suggestions about whom you might want to attach the record if the system has enough information to look for a possible match. There are sometimes similar records to look at as well. When you use the Search feature at FamilySearch and then go to the results, you can click on the paper icon to get to the Record Details Page. Sorry if my comments were confusing to those who may not be searching for records and then attaching them from through the results that are generated. Here is an example of a Records Details Page that suggests someone the record can be attached to.
I hope this is a better explanation of what I was trying to share which may or may not have been what was described in the original comment.
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