Dupes
The tree now has the ability to mark dupe sources. Once done, they no longer show up under hints. This tells me that FS supports the marking and removal of dupes. It makes good sense. Dupes can often bury much of the good stuff. For example, I once face a list of 90 sources and, through removing dupes, brought it down to 18. I've been corresponding to support about the issue and they won't acknowlege the dupe-marking capability and said that they encourage that all sources appropriate to the individual be attached — dupes or otherwise.
How do we make sense of that?
Answers
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Link all sources to their relevant people. This keeps folks from accidentally creating new people in FS.
I had 60+ on one person some years ago. Can be aggravating, but is a minor inconvenience in the age of microfiche → indexing → Source Linker1 -
Many of the so-called duplicate sources being so labeled are not true duplicates. We've had a few conversations on the subject. I've seen Cook County, Illinois birth CERTIFICATES marked as duplicates of the corresponding birth REGISTER sheet. Not the same record at all. And that's just one example. Be VERY wary of the duplicate label.
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Presumably, this is about that last checkbox on the "Dismiss" popup for Record Hints.
I'm not sure why that checkbox exists, because it shouldn't ever be used. If the hinted source has a different URL than all already-attached sources, and it is for the person in the profile with the hint, then it should be attached, because as Jack wrote above, otherwise you risk the clueless sorts using it badly. Also, dismissing it would in effect be lying to the hinting algorithm, telling it that it's not a match, when in fact it very much is.
If the hinted source really is a duplicate, that is, it has the same URL as one that's already attached, then there's something wrong in the system somewhere, which should be fixed rather than dismissed. (I've never actually encountered this error, but I seem to recall that fixing it involves detaching the source everywhere, and then re-attaching it just the once.)
If multiple references to the same event really bother you that much, you can investigate the underlying reasons and re-write the source titles to reflect them: "XY's baptism in the parish register", "XY's baptism in the bishop's copy", "Second filming of XY's baptism in the parish register", etc.
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I entriely diagree with with these responses. Yes, it's there and it's obviously there because it was planned to be there.
Áine, Yes, dupes can be accidently marked. So can everything else.
Jack, how can dupes keep "folks from accidentally creating new people in FS?" Anyone can create whatever profile they want and link as many sources they want. And all of it accidentally or intentionally. I'm sorry but the statement makes no sense at all. I've accidently created dupe profile but I'm polite enough to remove or merge it, and the same if I accidentally attach a dupe — unlike a great many here. For example, if you have the originally marriage record attached, how helpful is attaching 15 modern indices to the same source. I'm an historian and would *never* consider creating citations like that.
There's a system for marking dupes and it thanks you for doing so. I think that says it all. If FS didn't really mean to add that feature, then they need to remove it.0 -
for me, the "classic example" is attaching the same source (ie. Census, SSDI, etc) from multiple websites (ie. FamilySearch, Ancestry, My Heritage, etc). This adds to confusion and seems unnecessary and undesirable.
…. just sayin ….
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And, in fact, neither Ancestry or MyHeritage are publicly accessible — unless you pay.
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