Why am I being presented with multiple sources based on the same record?
It is not unusual to find multiple sources relating to the same event in FamilySearch, but these generally represent a different "original" (base) record. However, this year I have been "swamped" with sources for my Yorkshire ancestors / relatives. An example just checked out provides six sources - four dated 11 August 2022 and two dated 17 February 2022. They all contain the same reference of the Archives where the original parish register is held and are part of the same collection - "England, Yorkshire, Parish Registers, 1538-2016". The only difference in the detail shown (apart from the URL, of course) is the place of residence of the bride and groom.
My query concerns how this is happening. I could understand is there were originals and transcripts involved, or if the dates shown were spread over a long periods of time (multiple indexing), but how have up to six records of the exact same material been indexed, apparently on two occasions this year?
Assuming there were two projects that didn't get linked together, is it usual for separate indexers to submit work, which is then processed without any checking that the work has been duplicated?
I would stress this does not apply to just one or two members of a particular branch, who lived at the same or nearby locations. There are multiple families involved from different parts of Yorkshire.
I would be grateful for ideas on how this might have happened in this instance (yes, I'm quite aware of the "usual" reasons for duplication of sources), as it is causing me (and others) considerable effort in adding an unneeded number of sources (usually with identical data) to these Yorkshire families.
Answers
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I wonder if anybody can suggest how I might get a response to this query?
There was a "change of status" applied yesterday - presumably by a moderator - and it has been moved to the Family Tree category. I have been told "Indexing" is only meant for queries on live projects and, as nobody involved in project management ever visits Community, I suppose I am relying on this being escalated to have any chance of an insight as to why my issue is occurring.
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You're referring to the more generic term "sources" but if I understand correctly, you are actually talking about "record hints" -- a recommendation from FamilySearch to connect a particular source record to a particular person in Family Tree. I imagine that this is why your report was moved to the Family Tree area, since record hints are more in the realm of Family Tree than Indexing.
Although you mentioned a specific record collection, there's not enough information to follow up on a specific example. Could you supply a person ID for a person with these record hints that you consider duplicates? And it would help to know exactly which hints for that person you consider to be duplicates.
There are certainly some cases where there are actual duplicate records in FamilySearch. But it is very often the case when people report duplicates that the underlying record is actually different, perhaps with a different image for the same genealogical event, or sometimes with an improved record that replaced the original of lesser quality (either in the image or the indexed data). With specific details we can dig in and see better what exactly is happening.
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Thank you very much for responding. I attach an example here - not the one I specifically had in mind, unfortunately. The sources for that ID definitely included the same Record Office reference number, whereas I have not yet confirmed this is the case here. However, all five sources here have the same information and date (11 August 2022) and show little difference in content, apart from the URL, of course.
Here is the link: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/sources/MPRL-TL8
I have moved the six sources relating to this1854 marriage to the top (of the Sources section). There are two further sources relating to the event, but I am not querying these as one is an IGI record and the other relates to the marriage licence record.
As I say, this is a slightly different example to that raised in my original post - which I am unable to trace, at present. To reiterate my point, I am quite happy to see multiple sources if they contain different detail (or are from a truly different original source), but feel this type of example (arising possibly due to multiple indexing of the same batch?) just causes unnecessary clutter within the Sources section.
Thank you again for any help you can provide that might explain why this is happening so much recently, especially with records from this Yorkshire collection.
UPDATE - since writing the above, I have to be honest and admit that three of the records refer to "John Wrightson in entry for Sarah Watson", but that still leaves the duplication of the other three to explain!
(There is also another example on this page. If you look further down you will find three 1859 entries for "John in entry for Francis Wrightson", again for which there appears no reason for duplication: all with the same citation - ignoring the URL - of:
"England, Yorkshire, Parish Registers, 1538-2016", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:66BL-3CPX : 23 February 2022), John in entry for Francis Wrightson, 1859."
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@Paul W , these are definitely 3 distinct record collections, which explains why you can attach different very similar sources to the same person. They have different URLs, and different Digital Folder Numbers (which often correspond to the Film # for the microfilm). So it's completely understandable why these distinct sources can all be attached to the same person in Family Tree. It's not as understandable why the same images were filmed multiple times.
The first two seem to come from the same catalog entry, filmed in 1998:
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/188406?availability=Family%20History%20Library
The first one 007587844 appears to be a fuller collection "Baptisms, 1844-1876; Marriages, 1846-1885; Burials, 1845-1905." The second one 007588472 seems to be a subset just for "Marriages, 1846-1892." (no images for this one). I don't know why a subset would contain duplicate entries.
The third one comes from a distinct catalog entry, filmed in 2014.
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/2382492?availability=Family%20History%20Library
The duplication seems to come from duplicate filming of the same pages that were filmed in 1998. The second filming happened 16 years later, and appears to have been authorized by a somewhat different repository. You'd think that it would have been detected as already having been done, but somehow it was done again in 2014.
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#1 John Wrightson in entry for Sarah Watson, "England, Yorkshire, Parish Registers, 1538-2016"
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:66GC-LSYK?from=lynx1UIV8&treeref=MPRL-TL8
Digital Folder Number: 007587844, Image Number: 00274, Parish registers and poor law records for Thornaby-on-Tees, Baptisms, 1844-1876; Marriages, 1846-1885; Burials, 1845-1905.
The images for this collection include both left and right pages; for this particular record, both page 42 and page 43 are shown in a single image.
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#2 John Wrightson in entry for Sarah Watson, "England, Yorkshire, Parish Registers, 1538-2016"
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:66GH-MW8P?from=lynx1UIV8&treeref=MPRL-TL8
Digital Folder Number: 007588472, Image Number: 00048
Collection Information: England, Yorkshire, Parish Registers, 1538-2016
No images available for this collection
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#3 John Wrightson in entry for Sarah Watson, "England, Yorkshire, Parish Registers, 1538-2016"
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:66GF-T353?from=lynx1UIV8&treeref=MPRL-TL8
Digital Folder Number: 100468115, Image Number: 00045, England, Yorkshire, Thornaby-on-Tees, parish registers, Marriages, PR/TT/P 1/14, August 1846-February 1875
The images for this collection include single pages; for this particular record, only page 43 is shown.
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#4, #5, and #6 are entries as you noted above for John Wrightson as the principal, not John Wrightson in the entry of Sarah Watson.
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Thank you so much for your investigating the issue in such detail. It is a shame I am still unable to locate the original example, which was much better in that it showed the same record repository and the piece reference number as the original source.
My main point, which I have raised before, relates to the seemingly inefficient way FamilySearch records its indexed material. This leads to two problems: firstly, that (with ongoing projects) one cannot tell from the updates in the Blog, whether added material really does relate to records previously unpublished on the FamilySearch website. Secondly, the logs should not only allow for specific details to be provided for users, but act as a basis of ensuring indexing work is not duplicated.
Duplication can be a good thing (say if additional data is indexed, second or third time around), but I do feel there is a lot of wasted effort in indexing the exact same material with the exact same detail, when resources could be applied to putting previously unpublished records online.
Of course the argument being presented here was not only regarding that "wasted effort", but of the multiple, identical sources that were thereby produced - which added no value, so just caused (unnecessary) clutter in the Sources sections of the IDs I am dealing with. Also, I feel my time could be better spent on other activities (within Family Tree), rather than adding multiple sources (containing identical detail from the same source) to the thousands of IDs affected by this issue.
Previously, I have been advised FamilySearch does log full details of its indexed collections. Unfortunately, this information is not shared with either users or utilized by Indexing project leaders, to ensure they can easily identify, and avoid, duplication of projects.
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Hi Paul. I will look into who I can escalate this to in regards to future indexing projects.
Thanks to Alan and Paul for documenting this issue. I personally value efficiency and simplicity. I hope that duplication can be avoided on both ends.
Maile
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@Paul W; like you, I have been frustrated seeing so many copies of the same record. I'm sure that I will not likely answer all aspects of your concern, and much, you may already be aware of --
Usually, we get involved with "duplicate" records via the record hints that we see in Family Tree (thus, the reason that your query was moved to Family Tree).
FamilySearch uses a very restrictive definition of "duplicate' when referring to records. A record is a duplicate if (and apparently, only if) the URL is identical between records. That is a "no-no" in the system and, when we find this, we send the problem to be resolved so that it does not remain in the system.
If the URL is not identical, we are asked to accept it. We are told that, if we reject the "duplicate" hint, it will affect the way that the system searches.
Some additional discussion, including some reasons why we see such duplications, is found the the article, "What do I do with duplicate record hints in Family Tree?".
Hope this helps.
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Thank you both for your responses.
Yes, I realise a "true duplicate" has to have the same URL, but believe you have understood my reasons for this post:
(1) Fed-up with attaching so many sources that are identical in every other way and
(2) Wishing to save the efforts of indexers (or at least change their priorities) in having to index the same records (in exactly the same manner) due to there being multiple projects based on the same original source.
Naturally I'm quite happy with re-indexing if a subsequent project provides added value - e.g. when ages were omitted from a collection of burial records first time round, or only the county (i.e. no details of the parish) was indexed in an earlier project.
So, basically my main desire is to see that new indexing projects are thoroughly examined before being undertaken, to avoid the duplication that (although not very common) does happen from time to time - as appears to be the case in the Yorkshire indexed records I have referenced.
However, I can see there might be a further cause for the problem: perhaps in certain cases, records have not actually been indexed more than once, but (in the post-indexing process) have somehow been assigned more than one URL each.
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I came here looking for this topic. It's pretty tedious when the same document is transcribed multiple times.
There are only two choices: attach the duplicates or mark them "not a match." Neither option makes me happy. A third option, "duplicate" or "ignore" would be okay. Or, like Paul W said, creating a system in which these duplicates are less likely to occur.
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