How to stop multiple uses of one source?
Have been noticing over the last year several new (?) users have the misconception all record hints need to be attached when the sources show up on a person page. It seems they do not reject any hints, no matter how many ways the hint does not match. Many times the hint is already attached to another record and should be rejected. I do not know how these users are able to use a source 1, 2 or 3 times. Anyway, is there any way a source can be flagged or something so it can be used again? Have written to these users, but they do not seem to "get" what they are doing causes many problems and hours to fix.
Best Answer
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If anyone comes across this thread, note that the mobile apps have been fixed to no longer allow multiple attachments. See https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/520189/#Comment_520189
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Hi Carol - Welcome to FamilySearch Community and asking your questions about record hints. You are right that each record hint should be reviewed for applicability to the specific record. It should be marked as not a match if it doesn't apply. On the other hand, it is recommended that all applicable record hints be attached even if they appear to be a duplicate. As you know, when attaching records hints, the system will only allow you to attach a record hint if it hasn't already been attached to another record. In this case, the record hint should be marked as not a match or removed from the other record and attached correctly. So the system does provide that a record hint can only be attached to one record. Having said that, there are cases and situations where a source may end up attached to two or more records. For example, if two records are merged and then the deleted record from the merge is restored, it is possible that a source will end up being attached to both records. That is why after restoring a record, a careful examination of both records needs to be made to assure the sources are correct for a specific record and detached if not. Cleaning up after an incorrect merge is a tedious task unfortunately. Hope this helps. Please let us know if you have more questions or comments. Thanks.
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I do understand what you are saying. I agree, in theory, this is how it supposed to work. I have dealt extensively with the FamilySearch system as a consultant and have never seen, until lately, this happen. I do not know how it is done but about 4 users have found a way to use one source to multiple (up to 4 times) to different person pages. I am not referring to a source that had many people noted on same source such as a census. That is different than what I have been dealing with. For example, a birth record for John Smith is used for 1-2-3 other John Smiths at same time. Then, someone like me has to come along as detach the duplicate attachments to make the records correct. In some cases. this duplicate attachments cause duplicate families which also has to be altered. In one case, it took me 3 hours to "fix" all the problems this caused. I tired to replicate this error and I could not.
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One way to attach an indexed source citation to multiple profiles is using your Source Box.
You can end up with a whole lot of indexed sources in your Source Box if you never uncheck the checkbox in Source Linker -- which is easy to miss, given how it blends in perfectly with the source-tagging checkboxes.
You can also deliberately put an indexed source into your Source Box from the index detail page, regardless of attachment status, by clicking Save in the top black bar and choosing "Save to Source Box".
Once such a citation is in your Source Box, you can attach it to profiles starting either from the profile's Sources tab, or from your account's Source Box interface. Why you would go to the trouble is a different question entirely.
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@Julia Szent-Györgyi When you do as you say using the source box, does the system know that a source is attached to multiple records? I hardly ever use my source box any more. Thanks.
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Yes, the system knows about the multiple attachments.
And yes, it makes Source Linker unhappy.
(Your Source Box is primarily useful for unindexed and external [non-FS] sources. I have no idea why Source Linker even has that checkbox.)
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Attaching to source box does take several more steps so I do not think that is what this one particular user is doing. I think she has found a way (flaw in the system) to attach every record hint noted on a person page. In some cases, names do not match nor do relatives. I have messaged her to ask her how she did it. Waiting for answer. One of these person pages I have dealt with is MP4B-GJN, Johannes Hinzler, which will show you the extent of the "extra" record hints. I was lucky in this case to have a Wurttemberg Family Table to follow so I could "fix" the records.
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Hi Carol - There are two different problems here. The first is connecting a source to the wrong person. Family Search depends on individuals doing the correct research and attaching sources to the right person. And it is possible to connect every record hint displayed for a person to the person using source linker except in the case where it has already been connected to another record. Which is the second problem. Connecting one source to multiple people. Source linker does not allow that assuming no errors in the program. We would need specific examples of that happening. As previously mentioned in can happen through merges and restorations and using the source box.
It appears you have already cleaned up the record you refer to. You detached a bunch of sources. While I didn't look at every source you detached, all the ones I looked at are no longer attached to any record meaning they could be attached again using source linker. I also note the there are only 3 records hint which have been dismissed for this record. It seems you detached many more than that and perhaps they should be dismissed on this record.
Family Search does prohibited attaching one source to multiple records on the source linker. Unless of course there is a programming error and we would need specific examples of that. Family Search doesn't really have a way to stop users from attached a wrong source to a person. We depend on users to do their due diligence. And we shouldn't expect family Search to not display records hints which are already attached to other records. The would eliminate being able to find sources which are wrongly attached.
Thanks for your comments. Let us know if you have some more specific examples.
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I've looked through both the Sources page and the Change Log for Johannes Hinzler and cannot find any evidence of a doubly-attached source: everything is either attached just to him, or not currently attached anywhere.
Perhaps what's confusing you is the existence of multiple index entries referring ultimately to the same event? It looks like most of these German Lutheran vital events have between two and four index entries. I haven't explored the specifics for this case, but this can happen if there's both a parish register and a bishop's copy, and one or the other was filmed and/or indexed twice. It's best to attach all such sources to the correct profile, because it leads to better hints and fewer errors down the line.
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I realize I did not point to you to a "good" example although I am sure you could tell how many sources I had to deal with that did not go to that person. So, I found an example that I did not fix so you can see the double attachments. Johann Georg Hinzler #MP4B-FBM has 3 double attachments in the 1850 sources. Thanks for looking into this as I still think it is a flaw in the system.
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A question I have, though, that probably has nothing to do with what you are actually seeing, is if a possible mechanism for having one source on more than one record is actually a sign of positive, but incomplete, improvements.
I don't have time to test this out, and am not sure how to, but what happens if Person A with a source, is incorrectly merged into Person B so that person B now has that source, then person B is merged incorrectly into Person C, putting the source on survivor C. Then someone edits C so the merge cannot be reversed. Restoring a person does not do anything to the surviving record. So if someone finds these incorrect merges and restores both A and B, I would assume that all three of them, A, B, and C will have that source attached. If the person restoring forgets or is not aware of the needed final step of removing all information from B and C that were acquired during the merge that source and potentially a lot of other incorrect data will remain on B and C. Only Memories (and Ordinances) are "stuck" to their original IDs and revert to those ID's when a person is restored.
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This is strange. No merges on either Johann Jakob or Johann Georg. Looking at the source for the marriage of Johann Jakob, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPLM-Y744, it was attached to Johann Jakob on 21 May 2019 and then attached to Johann Georg 1 January 2023. The source linker should have prevented the second attachment unless the first was removed even if it was presented as a hint on Johann Georg.
I do hope you get an answer as to the procedure the other user used to do this so it can be blocked.
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I am really mad at myself for fixing so many of these double and triple attachments. HOWEVER, I did find another example Johann Georg Hinzler #MP4B-684, source for 1857, Johann Xstian Hinzler.
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Found more - Michael Henzler #LT33-CNN - souces dated 3 from 1844 and 1 from 1849.
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I am aware of two ways to get multiple attachments like this: using one's Source Box (as explained above), or confusing Source Linker by having it open in multiple tabs or browsers. (The latter is the only way I know of for ending up with the same citation twice on one profile.)
Earlier this month I had several instances of incorrect Record Hints that were already attached to the correct profiles. (I have an ancestor who was named after his father and married a woman with the same name as his mother. The situation hopelessly confuses the hinting engine.) I dismissed the hints, of course, since they were wrong, but now I wonder: what would've happened if I had accepted them? Would Source Linker have allowed me to attach them to a second profile, without removing the first one?
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I don’t think it’s the case here, but I know of another way to get one source attached to multiple profiles, or multiple times to a single profile.
Now that sources can be attached to “living” individuals, they can be attached to every version of that “living “ individual. When those profiles are marked “deceased” they all become visible, and all have the same source attached.
If they are then merged the surviving profile will have as many copies of the source as were attached to the separate profiles.
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Under the "Suggest an Idea" category we have at least two moderators that are commenting, "Thank you for your suggestion. This has been sent to the appropriate Project Manager" against practically every post they read. Some of these issues do not pose any real problem and, in some cases, have already been addressed by ordinary members of Community.
I would be grateful if you could encourage those moderating this (Family Tree) category (as well as Search, General Questions, etc.) to escalate issues such as this one to the "appropriate project manager". This, and other reported issues, really do need to be checked-out by the engineers, to see if there is a flaw in the process, or if the way a feature is working is considered to be perfectly in order. At present, it appears some important issues are not being escalated to the engineers for assessment or resolution.
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@carolrotto1 Hi! I have looked through the last 2 examples you provided: MP4B-FBM and LT33-CNN
I looked at the sources you specified but also looked at the other sources listed. Here is what I am seeing:
Each instance of the source is considered a separate instance of that record. The image IDs are all different, meaning they are individual instances in the database. Each can be attached because as far as the system is concerned they are different. This can happen for many reasons, some of which include multiple filming or the same records at different repositories.
Johann Georg Hinzler had 3 marriage sources from 1850.
- Image ID: NZ31-QVV, no image available, must browse film #101849185, image 134 of 1169.
- Image ID: QPL9-2QH8, image available, film #101849206, image #810 of 880.
- Image ID: QPLM-Y744, image available, film #101849185, image 134 of 1169.
See how each ID is different. That means it is pulling from a different place in the database. You will also notice that Records 1 and 3 are on the same film and wonder why the IDs aren't the same. The first one is not directed to an individual image. It's sending you the whole film and starts you at the beginning of the film. I had to navigate to the actual image.
Each of these instances can be shown as hints and we have been told to just go ahead and attach if they match the person.
If you find anywhere that the image IDs match on the same person, please let us know!
I hope this helps!!
Sam 😊
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@Paul W Hey Paul!
Thanks for the feedback. We have been working on this category and have engaged a few volunteers to help us. There is either a miscommunication on our part of what they should be doing or on their part in being so enthusiastic to help. We will address this with them pronto. That's is not a very helpful response. We are actually collecting all of the feedback in the Suggest an Idea category for the Product (not project as they stated) managers who work with specific engineering teams. As the volunteers gather this data they must be making that statement on each discussion they touch. We are trying to have better communication between Product managers and our community, so hopefully we will be reporting more things back to you. 😀
There are volunteers doing different things in the community and others besides those mentioned above are looking for and reporting issues into engineering. You may also have seen Maile Loveland in the community. She is a staff member who also reviews discussions looking for issues.
Sam ☺️
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@Sam Sulser, like you, at first I thought the question was caused by multiple indexes referring to the same event, but it isn't. The problem is actually in exactly the other direction: each of those index entries has somehow been attached to multiple profiles. This makes Source Linker quite unhappy.
(You can get to Source Linker from a Sources tab entry by clicking "Review Attachments.")
As I've written above, such a scenario can be achieved using one's Source Box, but it involves multiple deliberate actions for each person in each index entry. This makes it seem pretty unlikely that that's how all of these multiple attachments were made. So what process was involved? Would opening a bunch of record hints in new tabs do this?
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Just to be completely clear about the problem here that has everyone puzzled, here are the three image IDs you referenced in your post:
1) https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NZ31-QVV
2) https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPL9-2QH8
3) https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPLM-Y744
Source Linker does not allow this. The question is, how is that other user seemingly doing this so easily?
(Sorry about the large images. Resizing them appears to be broken tonight.)
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My best guess would be Record Hints> Sources Linker - the system seems to not be clearing the attachment to other record /PID - and just attaches to both.
Also if the user is anything like me - they probably had this record hint sitting in their task list for a long time. I have no idea how Record Hints keeps track of batches of hints - could an old batch not have been cleared by a new batch? Are the batches produced when the collection is published and then periodic afterward or is there only supposed to be one hinting batch 'in the wild' at the same time? Do hints expire? It would be interesting to know more about how the hinting system works.
Could it possibly have been unfinished attachments - The user went back in and finished attaching from a prior attachment? If so then the same source should have a different attachment date for parents/child.
There was a time when I kept getting the same hint over and over - I was told it was a different index and to attach it (as above). Hopefully duplicate indexes of same source/event can be combined into one 'parent' source/event at some point.
I could not really decipher anything in the Android app - it obscures Recent Changes. But I probably would not figure it out on the computer either.
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Thank you for your response to me. I figured you had recruited some extra moderators, who appear to be addressing specific issues - well, mainly by passing them on to someone they trust will be able to investigate more deeply. So, yes, hopefully there will be feedback from the engineers, etc., on some of these problems and on whether they will be addressed, or if there is no planned enhancement for the forseeable future.
Specifically on this multiple attachment issue, as you see, experienced users like Julia, Gordon and genthusiast do see some deeper issue here (other than the recognised one involving different URLs for the "same" source). So, I believe this is a something that really does need to be passed to the engineers for further investigation. Hopefully, we will receive a further response (via them) on what might be happening here.
Thanks again
Paul
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@Julia Szent-Györgyi, @Gordon Collett, @genthusiast, @Paul W Thank you guys for clarifying. I get it now. Julia, your explanation made this clearer for me and Gordon your images helped a lot. Not sure why this didn't click yesterday but it didn't, even after I spent a bunch of time on it 🤪. I will do some digging on this with our engineers and see what I can find out.
Sam 😉
BTW - you guys are awesome!!
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@Paul W Thanks so much for bringing up the issue with the multiple moderator comments that don't seem to add to the conversation.
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I have come across sources attached to as many as 4 different, unrelated profiles. This always is a clue that the attached profiles need to be cleaned up. Usually, at least some of their immediate family members' profiles also need to be cleaned up. Once the profiles are cleaned up, the bad hints go away and do not return. I find this work very satisfying.
Edit to add:
I almost forgot to mention these extra attachments all started after the RootsTech at which it was announced hints about duplicate profiles would be suppressed to reduce the number of really bad merges. Since then, the hints system has been showing historical record hints rather than duplicate profile hints, the historical records in question being already attached to the potential duplicate profile.
When I work such hints I often end up merging profiles, but when merging is not appropriate I recognize that there is some kind of tangle on the profiles, causing bad hints: sources attached to the profiles or their 1st degree relatives, that don't belong, or incorrect events left behind from previous deconflation or reversed bad merges, etc. Cleaning up those problems also removes the extra attachments of the sources.
Please tell the engineers that I actually like it this way! Detaching incorrect attachments is so much easier than undoing bad merges. So that's a big improvement.
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I had asked about double, triple and quadruaple attachments starting in January. At that time I did not have a good example of how much chaos this can cause. I now have an example Johann Georg Greiner #GSS9-BFS. I have messaged the user and he thinks if he gets a record hint he sould attach it whether it matches or has already been used. Of course, I suggested he get some local instruction but I do not think he will. He thinks he is correct to keep attaching. His errors have caused me MANY hours of "fixing". There should be a way that once "used" attachments can still be record hints but cannot be attached without first UNattaching. Untrained users can do this double attaching by simply attaching record hints. How do I get engineers involved. HELP!
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Through the Source Linker you cannot attach a hint that is attached to someone else unless you detach it first, at least I've never seen any case where that is possible.
Looking at your example I see this for the first hint:
It is impossible to attach the hint to the parents here without detaching them.
As a side note, the child's name, birth dat, and christening date, and parents names match exactly. Is this a coincidence or are there some merges that need to be done here?
Ouch! Looking at the two Johann Georg Greiners here things are a gigantic mess. The one Johann has five wives and four sets of parents. The other has three wives but at least only one set of parents. No wonder the Hint engine is so terribly confused. One has nine hints. The other has twelve hints.
Hints work quite well when the Family Tree profiles are in good shape. It sounds like you need to determine where this other user is working that intersects with your family, completely clean up the profiles for both your and his family and get them correct, attach all the hints to the right people first before he gets there, and dismiss them as not a match from the wrong people, although I suspect that most of them will vanish on their own when the profiles are fixed.
This is a great illustration of the principle that the best way to protect the data of our relatives from someone who is not very good at working in Family Tree is to work on getting that person's relatives' data in as good as shape as possible for him or her.
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I have to disagree with you as this user has been EASILY double, triple attaching many, many times and messing up many, many records. I have spent many hours "fixing' his mistakes. Can an engineer get in touch with him to find out how he did it. I asked and he said came to him as record hints, perhaps as family record hints???
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I meant the record hints that come to the individual's dashboard.
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I spend a lot of time deconflating profiles in Family Tree. Experience has taught me to show other contributors what is confusing. Here is an example:
These two men and their families had been conflated. Teasing them all apart took me several days of work. One product of my work was this Alert note, posted on both profiles.
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