FamilySearch tree - add a facility to filter and/or group a person's sources ?

kob3203

When there are a lot of sources attached to a person it might be useful to be able to filter and/or group them.

I'm not sure either is practical as it depends whether the necessary filter/group information is in the database.

If it can be done I'd vote for a filter to show only sources where the person is the principal (and the opposite, only sources where the person isn't the principal).

Paul W

@kob3203

To an extent, this matter can already be addressed by users. In the Sources section, under Options, change the Sort method from Date to Custom. This will enable you to arrange sources in the order that suits you.

I agree with your point regarding sources where the individual is not the principal party. I place all these sources (e.g. where the person appears in an entry for a christening of a child) at the bottom of the list. In fact, I personally arrange to a set order: Birth / Christening, Marriage, Death / Burial, Census, Other records (e.g. appearance on voters' lists), then those relating to events where the spouse or children are the primary subject. (The list is likely to be longer / have more categories in many cases, of course.)

The only problem here is when you, or another user, adds further sources to the section, you then have to reposition those to an appropriate place in the list. (Any sources later added will appear at the top, if you have chosen the "Custom" option, over "Date".)

Other users have created divisions in the Sources sections from creating headings (perhaps another Community member might wish to illustrate this), whereby they act as "separators" for specific groups of sources - e.g., headers labelled "Vitals", "Census", "Children's Records", etc.

Previously, I did not see the need to add all those sources not primarily related to the individual (i.e., those that were not their own Vitals records) - as I always believed it to be sufficient to attach sources just to the person they directly referred to. The problem with that idea is that the sources (those, say, including the father's name) will remain there for other users to attach - and they might well attach them to an individual of very similar identity, instead of the correct relative. Also, another user might detach a relationship (in error) so the connection between (say) father and child would be lost if, say, the child's christening source had only been attached to them, and not also to the parent(s).

In short, similar requests to yours have been made over the last ten years or so (since Family Tree was introduced), but FamilySearch appears to have taken the approach of it being best to leave it to individual users to carry out any further customising of the Sources section themselves.

However, perhaps the ability of being able to "hide" certain sources - as a personal, customised option - might be considered, as these Sources sections can become extremely cluttered. For example, for one relative I have about thirty electoral register sources alone to add, most of which provide an address (same one) and month/year details - so only really "usefully" advise that he lived at the same house for a very long period!