Attaching sources to family members
After I have created a source, it would be nice if I could attach that source to other family members with just a quick check. Now I have to go back to the person which takes me to his source page, go to details page, find the family member that is also in the source, click on their name, their source page and attach, go back (which it will be his source page) source page, go to detail page, list of family members, their source page, etc.
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You can do this more efficiently with a feature that was added sometime last year.
On any page, click on your account name in the upper right corner and in the drop down menu, choose "Source Box":
This opens your Source Box without it referencing any one person. Now when you click the Attach button, a pop up appears to ask you who the source is to be attached to:
You can search by name, just attach using an ID number, or pick from your Recents list.
After you have attached the source to one person, just click Attach again for the next person.
This feature is documented in the Help Center at: https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/from-my-source-box-how-do-i-attach-a-source-to-a-person-in-family-tree
I agree that it is rather hidden.
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It would be fantastic, though, if right in source linker after I click attached and find by ID (or name), I would get a prompt RIGHT there which asks "Add Another ID?". If this feature would allow me to stack up an entire family group mentioned in a source, and add it to them at one time, that would be so fantastic. Yes, there is the prompt for why you are adding the feature, but one size can certainly fit all "this person was mentioned in John Doe's will". If it needs editing, or there is a desire to be more specific for just one person, let us go to that person and edit later, such as "this person is mentioned as son in law in John Doe's will."
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@Gail Swihart Watson Note, however, that for a FamilySearch source (which is what you are surely dealing with if you are in the source linker), a record has multiple persons mentioned in it (a record persona). For example, a census record may have John as head of household, Mary as his wife, Sally as a daughter, and James as a son. What you are attaching to each person is that specific record persona, not the census record in general. Each record persona is essentially a different source (has a different ID). You most certainly do NOT want to attach the record persona for John to Mary, Sally, and James.
One major purpose of the source linker is to allow you to make sure that all the record personas are properly lined up with persons in Family Tree before you actually attach them. You also have the opportunity to create persons in Family Tree if they are mentioned in the record but do not yet exist in Family Tree, and then attach the source to help document them. Your suggestion would bypass those important steps, so I don't see how it is practical.
The original post and the response by @Gordon Collett seem to be talking about a non-FamilySearch source (one created by some other means, which doesn't have the multiple record personas that are part of many FamilySearch sources). Those would not be attached via the source linker. For such sources, it can indeed be helpful to attach the source to multiple people, and so it is good to explore ways to make that easier.
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@Alan E. Brown Yes, source linker can do the trick, you are correct. That is not always clean though.
If people outside the "nucleus family" are living with the head of house in a census, and the source linker can't identify them, then you are not permitted to search for an ID and add them at that point. They become listed as unfinished attachments. You have to go to the census record's unfinished attachments, click the name of the unattached person, click Attach to Tree and then input the ID and link the person and census.
However, there are many sources in FamilySearch that don't generate the source linker, I think many of them are non or loosely indexed images. Sometimes a record will come up in a search result, but there will be no link to the image, only to the image collection. When adding these sources, it would be so helpful to use the procedure I described rather than going to each person and adding a source from the source box.
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I believe there are several solutions that assist in creating/attaching Sources - whether within/without FamilySearch address/namespace.
RecordSeek is one that can be added as a browser extension - which allows attachment to multiple PID without changing persona (in other words record persona are not considered other than notes - if I recall). It also is capable of adding the Source to Source Box during Source creation/attachment.
Other solutions may be similar or have yet other features.
One of the great features of Source Box is that it allows creation of the persona relationship in Tree if it does not currently exist. One of the drawbacks is that if the record index was created incorrectly - and not currently editable - you can attach it to the correct Tree person but with the incorrect record persona. One of the features of record personas is that the Title of the Source usually reflects the relation of the persona to the primary record persona. RecordSeek/Source Box require creating a Source copy to change the Title to reflect the persona (if I recall correctly - doable but not fun).
With the new 'edit every field' indexer app/viewer - the index can be corrected - I hope many/most record custodians will allow such indexes - it helps the entire genealogical community (as long as indexers do a good job - I guess we have drawback potential eerywhere).
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@Gail Swihart Watson, You stated "If people outside the "nucleus family" are living with the head of house in a census, and the source linker can't identify them, then you are not permitted to search for an ID and add them at that point. They become listed as unfinished attachments. You have to go to the census record's unfinished attachments, click the name of the unattached person, click Attach to Tree and then input the ID and link the person and census."
This is not actually the case. All you have to do is move that outside person to be the focus person, the one right under the blue bar, in the left hand column then click Change in the right had column to see:
Then just paste in the ID number and you can attach the source to the correct person.
Regarding unindexed images, when attaching them from the image viewer, you are given the option to attach the image to everyone in a family:
If there are additional people on the page not in that family but you have the ID, then after attaching to this family, since you are still at the same image, all you need to do is start the attachment process all over again and enter in a different initial ID.
I'm not sure what you are referring to when you stated "Sometimes a record will come up in a search result, but there will be no link to the image, only to the image collection." Can you give an example?
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I'm going to try to clarify some concepts. I hope I don't just add more mud. :-)
First: Source Linker applies only and solely to indexed records. The distinction that Alan was trying to make is not actually between "FS" and "not FS", but between "indexed on FS" and "not indexed on FS". The original question of this thread concerns the latter, so Source Linker isn't relevant.
(SL is a very versatile tool, and it can actually attach those census records to those unrelated people living with the family, without ever leaving the Source Linker screen. I don't do it often enough to know the correct pixel to click, but I know it's there.)
Second: when you add a source to your Source Box and then use it to attach that source to other profiles, the default is that it really will be another instance of that exact same source. If you edit it, it will change everywhere that it has been used. This is a very important feature, to my way of thinking and doing things, but people with different expectations or methods often see it as an inexplicable flaw.
Third, and perhaps most relevant to the question at hand: your Source Box can be approached/opened from two different "ends", and your direction of approach determines exactly what you can do with it. The first one, which the original poster was using, opens the box from a particular profile. This allows you to attach things to that profile only. If this is the only approach you know, then attaching a source to a different profile involves navigating to that other profile and re-opening the box from there. However, there is another approach, which Gordon described: you can open your box from your user account. This allows you to attach a source to any profile, which you can find by name, by ID, or by using your Recents list.
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