duplicate sources
What do I do when the same source is entered twice for the same person?
Best Answers
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Are you certain is the same source? There are many records that have been indexed multiple times, and there are many similar records that reference the same event.
For example - the Roman Catholic baptism records for the Archdiocese of Newark were indexed multiple times, sometimes with slightly different information collected in the index.
Or, there are English Parish Registers with Bishop's Transcripts of the same records. That's not the same source, but the same event with two sources.
Can you share an example? The PID of the profile, if the person is deceased, would be great.
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The same source can be indexed several times. The reason for this is that different organisations index the same information. Sometimes they include different parts of the record, sometime, as you will notice they are identical. One thing you can do is when using source linker is to look at the top left of the source link box to see if there is a link to the image and or record. If there is, check to see if it is the identical record. It's always advisable to look at the original as there is often more information. Recently I was adding a source and when checking the original I found that much later someone had written in the date of death for the person I was checking, something I had never seen before in that type of record.
If they are already in the source box open them both in separate windows, put them side by side and check to see if they are the same by, if possible, looking at the original image. To be honest there isn't really any harm if the same record is there more than once. If you only want one source for that record you can, if your are certain, remove the copies.
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Answers
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An example would be a baptism for a person, with the exact information, names and dates, locations. No new information.
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I meant a specific example - to see if the source is actually a duplicate or another indexing of the same records. Without specifics, it's impossible to answer your question. Again, if the person is deceased, the PID (the identifying code near the name), please.
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The risk you run if you delete a so-called duplicate, really another indexing or a slightly different indexing of the same record, is that someone will almost assuredly come along later and create a duplicate profile for the people named in the record. Been there and done that, many times. Far better to leave it attached.
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I've got the same sort of issue with Czech Republic Church Books being indexed 100-200 times. Ex. PID: G52J-1HM. Digital Folder Number 005648787.
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See https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/120866/what-are-family-searchs-rules-for-deleting-multiple-duplicate-sources#latest for further detail on the matter raised by @Brian Dimter
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There are many definitions of what "a duplicate source" means - so, just to try to be clear what's going on - the example raised by @Brian Dimter refers to two different URLs for the Source Records ( https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6PN7-PRF8 and https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:65VP-N3Y6 ) (lots more than two but that's all I've written down...)
Both URLs point to the same Digital Folder and Image numbers.
The payload of info on the two Source Records is identical.
So they are not the same Source Record by our usual definition but, as suggested above, it looks like the same image has been indexed many, many times - or alternatively, it may have been indexed once but the same index may have been loaded multiple times.
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Yes, I probably used the wrong term for the example being referenced here. It seems most doubtful the film has been actually indexed multiple times, but as Adrian suggests has somehow been loaded to the database multiple times. I'm sure that's the reason we end up with multiple sources in many other instances, although never quite of this scale!
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