More user friendly website

Víctor Manuel Vizcaíno Rangel

It is a very good option to write the reasons why I believe that a person's data in family search is correct, however not in all cases it is feasible not to allow the creation of new persons without writing, for example, the reason why I believe that the person is deceased, because it may happen that the person is more than 100 years old or the user knows without there being records on the family search page of the death of the person you are trying to create, that is, the record of the death is recent and there is still no information in family search. Therefore, it is annoying to have to give a reason.

It would be good to make modifications to the website to make it more user friendly in this aspect.

Alan E. Brown

It is sadly very common for people to incorrectly assume that someone is dead, when they are actually still alive. If they are or might be less than 110 years old, FamilySearch requires the user who is creating that person to give a reason. That is a very good policy, since it is not obvious that the person is dead. It's not hard to say "I attended the funeral" or "my mother told me that Aunt Agnes died" or even just "personal knowledge." But if someone puts "age" as a reason for someone 85 years old being dead, I know they are making a bad assumption.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

It's when I just finished entering the person's death date and place -- or better yet, a birthdate two centuries ago -- that Source Linker's required reason statement becomes Highly Infuriating. When it's someone who could plausibly still be living, the requirement is merely mildly annoying -- and either way, a simple period or exclamation point will satisfy it.

Alan E. Brown

I agree that the source linker should not require a death reason statement for a person with a birthdate two centuries ago. It's my fuzzy recollection that once upon a time there was a check for a birth date being more than 110 years in the past, and a reason statement was allowed but not required in that case. My memory may be wrong on that, but I do think that's how it should work (and it certainly doesn't seem to work that way right now).

And it also seems odd that adding a person through the source linker requires a death reason statement, but adding a person other ways (e.g., as a child on the person page) has no such requirement. I think the reason statement should always be required if the person is less than 110 and no death information was supplied, and optional otherwise.