Can I remove "Important research has been done on this person." notifications
Someone has seemingly gone through multiple members of my family, and added "important notes" that simply consist of the burial information from Findagrave. This shows up at the top of these relatives now in scary red:
Important research has been done on this person. Please read these alert notes before making changes.
They didn't actually link to the site, they simply put the following:
Burial:
FindAGrave: [findagrave number not even a link]
DeWitt City Cemetery
North Bridge Street
DeWitt, Clinton County, Michigan 48820
While this information may be useful, it's certainly not "important research" and they seem to have done this for multiple people at this cemetery. These notes don't seem necessary at all but I'm not sure what the protocol is for removing them.
Secondly is there a proper way for adding findagrave links? Thank you for your time
Best Answer
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You can remove any note, including an alert, by hitting the pencil icon next to it on the Collaborate tab and then using the Delete Note option at the bottom of the resulting screen (though I'd perhaps just uncheck the Alert box and leave the text in place as a Note).
However on this occasion you might be wisest to contact the individual concerned first (click on their contact id on the Change Log) so they don't just put it back later. N.B. they are not obliged to respond.
All Find a Grave memorials should be available as ordinary FS Records (you can even search the FS Find a Grave Collection direct, using the memorial number as the Affiliate Record Number), so you can easily attach them as Sources. The information does take a few months to trickle through from Find a Grave to FS, though.
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Answers
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With regard to your second question about adding FindAGrave (and BillionGraves) sources, I would add this.
When one of these sources is displayed (e.g. by selecting a Record Hint or a result from a Record Search), the cemetery name is usually included, but it is in a separate field. Here is an example of a random unattached source that I found from a record search for "John Smith" in the Find A Grave collection:
When this record is opened in the source linker, the Cemetery field is ignored. As a consequence, this what I see if I open the record in the source linker by clicking the ATTACH TO TREE button:
The cemetery name is nowhere to be seen. Many cemeteries are defined as standard places in FamilySearch, so it would be useful to have the attached sources fully standardized. Even if there is no standard place, including its name in the user-entered text and standardizing it with the town, etc., would be helpful. At present, this information has to be entered manually, either while attaching the source or by editing the burial afterwards. This isn't too laborious as you can drag and drop the cemetery name from the browser tab that has the profile to the tab where the source linker is. I may Make A Suggestion that this could be automated for these collections; if I do, and it comes to pass, you read it here first.
I frequently find profiles that have FindAGrave and/or BillionGraves sources attached but do not include the cemetery name, or include a variant of the name that isn't standardized.
I suspect that FamilySearch's two cemetery search tools may depend on profiles' burial places being of type Cemetery. If this is the case, standardizing burial places with an actual cemetery might improve their performance which is quirky at present.
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@JulianBrown38 - what you add is a useful point. But I'd further add that the example you gave shows that there is still more detail to be thought about in some cases.
Portsmouth Naval Memorial is not a cemetery - it's a memorial (aka cenotaph) which commemorates someone whose body is elsewhere. The FindAGrave entry for that person actually says "Final resting place unknown. Name listed on Panel 27", as well as warning the reader that this is a memorial for those buried elsewhere. This is going to be a typical theme for people killed in wars. Indeed, many people may be commemorated on several memorials but are buried, of course, in either one cemetery or none.
That's all visible on the FindAGrave entry on that site - but isn't that clear in the "Find a Grave Index" collection on FamilySearch - unless you twig what "Memorial" means.
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@JulianBrown38 Interestingly, the mobile Family Tree app's source linker has included the actual cemetery name in these situations for many years. I don't know why the website's source linker hasn't done this. That may not be helpful for you if you primarily use the website, but it shows that at least some part of FamilySearch agrees with you that it is a good idea.
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