When linking a source, a custom event is created. Why is the source not linked to that event?

Rick English

When linking a source, a custom event is created. Why is the source not linked to that event?

Julia Szent-Györgyi

The reason is that Source Linker far predates the brand-new ability to tag sources to conclusions in Other Information. When that bit of software was last modified, only Vitals events could be linked with specific sources, so it has no controls or options for linking sources to custom events.

Gordon Collett

When this new feature of being able to tag a source to a piece of Other Information was released last year after about eight years of requests for it, the very first questions were this same one, why Other Information could not be automatically tagged when creating a source like they can be for Vitals. Someone from FamilySearch did answer and report that there were two reasons.

Firstly, data fields for Vitals always exist whether or not they contain any data. Other Information fields do not exist until the user specifically creates one either from the Detail page or through the Source Linker. The process of using the Source Linker can't tag a source to an Other Information data field that does not exist yet.

Secondly, tagging a source to Other Information is more complex because of the extra step of needing to designate which one piece of data out of multiple pieces of the same type the source should be tagged to. For example, if you create or attach a source for a residence, you at some point have to declare which of the dozen residences on the Detail page the source should be tagged to.

After eight years or more of requests, I'm sure the programmers felt people would appreciate this new feature now rather than wait another eight years while they figured out how to completely rework the tagging process to include automatic tagging for Other Information data. It would be convenient to have the ability some day and since it is being requested about once a month I would not be surprised if it is on the list of future improvements.