How to properly attach unindexed sources to records?
I've found A LOT of unindexed records that I'd like to attach to the profiles I'm working on, and I just want to be sure that I'm doing it right.
This particular page, for example, has 7 different birth/death/marriage records on it, but I'm only attaching one of them. When I get to this screen, am I creating the source for just my specific record, or for all of them on this page? So if someone else goes to attach a record to one of the other 6, will they be limited to the source I created for it? Should I just make it a generic source for the whole page?
Just wanna be certain to do it right. I tried attaching it from the pages of the profiles themselves from the "Add New Source" option, but that listed it as an external source rather than as an FS one.
Just wanna be sure I'm doing this correctly. I've found over 100 records to attach for the family I'm working on and I don't want to cause problems for anyone.
Answers
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As I understand it, a FS Historical Record is by definition indexed. All sources apart from FS Historical Records count as 'external', so, yes, an unindexed FS Image would be added as an external source.
If the Image is unindexed and clearly would span multiple Historical Records if it had been indexed, then yes it would need to be attached as an external source in exactly the same way to the other relevant profiles, by you or others.
FS Computer Aided Indexing will eventually get to the Image, demarcate it into individual Record areas, and index each one. At that point it will have multiple Historical Record URLs that can be attached to the appropriate profiles.
I hope that helps, please just post again if it doesn't.
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So basically the best way to do it would be to attach using the person's profile page just as if I was attaching a source from a non-FS website?
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@MatthewScheich that's what I would do.
@SerraNola tagging you in case I have missed something.
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Great. Thank you!
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@MatthewScheich Although you can attach an unindexed record as an external source as @MandyShaw1 suggested, another approach is to attach it as an unindexed FamilySearch record, which has some advantages.
The screen you showed in your screen shot is typical for when you have used the Search > Images option to search through unindexed record images. An example I will use in this walkthrough is the 1940 US Census for Sweetwater County, Wyoming. When you are looking at such an image, you can click the Save Record button and then choose Attach to person in Family Tree. That begins the Attach To Tree flow, which consists of 4 steps.
Step 1: Describe the record you have found.
In step 1, you can fill in the basic details for the record. Since you are creating a source for this whole image, it's helpful to at least identify the particular information you are focused on. In my example, I noted that the information is on lines 76-77.
Step 2: Select a Family Tree person to attach this source to.
In step 2, you select the primary person in Family Tree to attach the source to. It's most convenient if you have recently visited their profile so that they are in your Recents list, but if not, you can enter the Person ID.
Step 3. Attach this source to the other relatives.
Step 3 is optional, but is useful if the record refers to more than one person in the family. When you are attaching the source record to multiple people, this is particularly more efficient than attaching the source separately to each individual. There are several sections that list the spouses, children, parents, and siblings currently in Family Tree, with options to add new persons in any of those categories.
Step 4. This source will be attached to the following Family Tree people.
In step 4, you can confirm that the intended people have been selected, and provide a reason for attaching this source. Then when you click the Attach to Tree button, the source will be attached to each of them.
The result is a source that is a FamilySearch source for a "record that has not yet been indexed" (in this case, the 1940 US Census has indeed been indexed, but I came to this record by searching through images, not through the index). It looks like this in the list of sources on the profile:
Using the links, I can see the original document in context. You can see that the source title, source date, and notes were applied to all the associated persons, just as I entered them in step 1. And the citation was filled in from the collection data. So this Attach To Tree flow is quite efficient in attaching an unindexed source record to one or more profiles in Family Tree.
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Sorry to confuse the issue everyone!
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To address some of your associated questions:
This particular page, for example, has 7 different birth/death/marriage records on it, but I'm only attaching one of them. When I get to this screen, am I creating the source for just my specific record, or for all of them on this page? So if someone else goes to attach a record to one of the other 6, will they be limited to the source I created for it? Should I just make it a generic source for the whole page?
You are just creating a generic source of the entire page. These are not sources specific to any one person on the page. The title you put on the source is to point out what you find important on the page.
You are not really creating a FamilySearch system source. So if someone else goes to the same page, they will see the identical starting screen that you do and will need to go through the same process Alan outlined to create another source, with the title that user wants it to have, and attach it to the people they want to attach it to.
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@Alan E. Brown and @Gordon Collett
Perhaps one (or both!) of you could clarify the position in the example outlined below.
I come across a baptism record in an unindexed collection of Norfolk, England parishes. This parish is particularly small, so at least two or three years' entries appear on each image. First, I notice the baptism of a Thomas Wilson to parents John and Mary. I add a title along the lines:
"Thomas Wilson 1804 Upton, Norfolk Baptism, to parents John & Mary Wilson"
I attach to Thomas, as the primary individual, then additionally to the profiles of his parents (as explained in Alan's example above). However, I then notice further down the page that there is a further baptism entry, relating to Thomas' sibling, Jane. Knowing that the image effectively relates to the whole page (i.e., unlike indexed records, there is just one URL), I know when I add as a source to Jane, my earlier subject title will have to be amended, as I cannot add as
"Jane Wilson 1805 Upton, Norfolk Baptism, to parents John & Mary Wilson"
as this would be carried over as the revised title on all four profiles to which it will then be attached. To make it reflect the nature of the source content, I change the title to
"Thomas Wilson 1804 and Jane Wilson 1805 Upton, Norfolk Baptisms, to Parents John & Mary Wilson"
I have always previously thought, great, the source title will now provide sense when viewing from the Sources sections of all four individuals to whose profiles it has been added. BUT, following comments made in your posts, I have now realised (or believe to be the case) that if another user comes along and finds an entry for their Henry Clarke on the page, when they add as a source to Henry (and his parents), say with the title
"Henry Clarke 1805 Upton, Norfolk Baptism, to parents George & Eliza Clarke"
that will now surely appear as the title in the Sources section of all seven of the individuals to whom the one image (same URL, unlike with indexed sources) is now attached!
I wonder if you have any suggestions on how to address a situation like this? Okay, I can amend the title so it again accurately reflects the subject of the source relating to the members of "my" WILSON family, but what can the other user then do (except get into the "edit wars game") to make sense of the source added to his CLARKE family profiles, which now seemingly has no connection to them?
As far as I remember from previous discussions, adding via the Source BOX will not solve the title issue, either (i.e., there seems no way of adding an unindexed source to multiple individuals, but with different titles)? Otherwise, please correct me, or advise if there is a way around this problem.
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I have not actually done this for a couple of years but as I recall:
The source that the other user creates for Henry is separate and independent from the source you created. Each page of an unindexed record can have an unlimited number of sources created for that page by different users each with a different title and different attachments.
Now if that other user happened to find the source that you attached to a profile, all that user could do is copy it to their source box to create "Copy of Thomas Wilson 1804 and Jane Wilson 1805 Upton, Norfolk Baptisms, to Parents John & Mary Wilson" Changing the name of that source will not change the name of your source.
Alan, please correct me if I am wrong!
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@Gordon Collett You're right that sources are independent of each other. So following @Paul W's example, the source that some other user created for the Henry Clarke family would have nothing to do with Paul's source for Thomas Wilson with his parents John and Mary. They both refer to the same unindexed image, but that's fine — multiple sources can refer to a single image.
But you go a bit too far in your suggestion that "Each page of an unindexed record can have an unlimited number of sources created for that page by different users each with a different title and different attachments." The problem with this goes back to your earlier claim that "You are not really creating a FamilySearch system source." These sources that FamilySearch helps you to create for an unindexed record are indeed FamilySearch system sources. They are undoubtedly different from the FamilySearch system sources that are used for indexed records, but they are much stronger entities than the external sources that are not connected to anything else in Family Tree.
Using these system sources for unindexed records, FamilySearch does keep track of which profiles are attached to the a particular image. In my example, I attached Sheet 5B for the 1940 Census in Superior, Wyoming to William Ferrell and Maria Conzatti. No one else can do that now. If my cousin were to work through that Attach To Tree flow for that same Sheet 5B image and attempt to select Maria Conzatti as a person to attach it to, she would find that it is not allowed, since it is already attached:
Note that the selection circle to the left of Maria is disabled; my cousin (or I) simply cannot attach this image to Maria again.
The system tracks who has been attached to an image, and these system sources for unindexed records can only be created if they are attached to at least one profile during the Attach To Tree flow. So there is a practical limit to how many sources can be attached to a particular image. Typically, these sources will be attached to a family. So in my example of Sheet 5B, there are 10 families listed that comprise the 40 individuals on that census page. There would typically be no more than 10 sources for that image.
Of course, other users might choose to attach family members individually, so there could be up to 40 sources for that census page. And nothing stops someone from attaching a different Maria Conzatti profile from Italy or Brazil to that image (that would be wrong, since the correct Maria Conzatti profile is already attached, but other users might choose another Maria Conzatti anyway). So theoretically it could be more. But hopefully that shows that when this feature is properly used, there will generally be a limited number of sources attached to a particular unindexed record image.
Finally, all this discussion of limits is tempered somewhat by your point that the Source Box can be used to make copies of these sources. You're totally correct that any number of users can copy these sources and attach them to anyone they want — even to the original profile. We've seen this with FamilySearch system sources for indexed records as well. Using the Source Box to attach a copied source gets around the usual checking for duplicate sources. Hopefully users will be judicious in their use of the Source Box and avoid duplication.
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@Alan E. Brown and @Gordon Collett
Thank you both for your contributions. I have been intending to work on examples of image-only records to add to multiple individuals, but keep getting distracted by other Family Tree work.
As discussed earlier, my main problem up till now has been the change in title in the different Sources sections for all individuals, once I have edited the title against just one of the individuals concerned.
As Alan has illustrated, I am aware the source cannot be added to the same individual twice - by getting a message to that affect when I have forgotten I had already attached the record as a source, when revisiting the record at a later date.
In spite of your helpful advice, I will try examples out for myself later. However, I only have one FamilySearch account, so will have to trust the fact that the account one is working from is not a relevant factor when adding the same record to a totally unrelated individual or family.
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One caution, if you are working from Full-Text Search when you find a relevant record:
We have seen that some URLs attached from FTS are not permalinks. I have not experienced the issue myself, but I was involved in a recent Community thread outlining the issue.
https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/189665/we-are-unable-to-display-the-record-for-this-source-please-try-again-later2 -
I just tested my issue by attaching a census record to all applicable / named members of the family and titled it "Peter Borrows and Family at Hawnby, Yorkshire in 1841 Census".
As expected, when I amended the title (from daughter Hannah's Sources section (to "Hannah Borrows and Family at Hawnby, Yorkshire in 1841 Census") the amended title was carried across to the rest of the family.
Quite simply, if one wants a unique title to be added to each family member (i.e., including just their name "at the front"), the source has to be added to them one by one, instead of collectively.
"Of course that's the case!", I can hear you saying (Alan, Gordon and others), but I'm afraid that was the point that was just not sinking in - Family Tree's seemingly excellent "shortcut" in being able to add a source to multiple individuals is just not appropriate to my needs (in some cases), especially when "requiring" a separate / unique title when viewing the source from the individual family members' Sources sections.
In cases like this, I think I will still carry on in adding with a title (like) "Peter Borrows and Family at Hawnby, Yorkshire in 1841 Census", because that looks okay from whoever's "Sources" I view it from. In other cases, I believe I will use the "long-winded" method, in order to reflect more precisely the primary individual who I feel should be highlighted in the title.
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Ah! Terminology! Such a problem. Sounds like the question is sufficiently answered but I thought I'd just clarify how I was using terms. Looking at record, not memory, sources, there are three type.
A) What I called FamilySearch System Sources. Maybe FamilySearch Index Sources is a better term.
- Have FamilySearch logo next to them.
- Created by FamilySearch from historical record indexes.
- References a single individual.
- Designed to be attached to a single profile.
- I assume they are created from the index when the Source Linker is used to attach them. (Or do they exist in some sense even before appearing on a profile's Source page? If they cannot be viewed until attached to a profile, do they exist?)
- Cannot be deleted from the system.
B) What I guess I would call FamilySearch Single Page of A Document Image Sources.
- Have a FamilySearch logo next to them.
- Created by FamilySearch from a scanned image page.
- Reference one scanned image page.
- Appear to only be created when requested by a user via the Attach to Tree link.
- Can be attached to a primary person's profile, which must be selected for the source to be created, and to the primary person's parents, spouse, children, and siblings at the time of its creation.
- Only one version of such a source can be created for any one person.
- An unlimited number of versions of the source for one scanned image can be created. Each can have its own title and attachments.
- Can be delete from the system.
C) User created sources.
- Have a globe icon next to them.
- Not being discussed here.
I'll explain B-5
Here is an Image source I attached years ago:
The Web Page link and the View the Original Document link go to the same place:
Here there is no indication whether I or anyone else has ever requested a source be created and attached to any profile. Clicking Attach to Tree comes here:
Here I can write my own title for the source I am going to created, add a date, and add notes. There is a link to view who this is already attached to which can just be ignored. (This wasn't here the last time I was on such a page. It is a nice addition.)
Going on I am asked who I want to attach the source to and am helpfully presented with my Recents list:
The only people I cannot choose to attach the source to are people to whom this image is already attached. There is no indication on this page of who any of those people might be unless one of them happens to be on my Recents list.
The reason I say that an unlimited number of sources can be created for this page is that no matter how many source I create for this page, that Attach to Tree button is still active when I come back to the starting page. Every time I click it, I can have a new source created. I can create one source with a unique title for each of the about 20 people on this page. And one for each of their duplicates (4 duplicates for each would be 80 more sources.) And wrongly create 100 sources with 100 different titles for another 100 people who are not actually on this page. That's 200 so far. Would this ever happen? I certainly hope not! But, to over stress the point, editing one of those 200 titles will have no effect on the other 199.
Regarding deleting sources, if you view an index derived source, the only tools available are:
If you view a document derived source, you see:
It's this ability to completely remove this document derived source from the system that has led me to consider index derived sources as "system" sources and document derived source as a hybrid type that are not really system sources but also not purely user created sources.
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@Gordon Collett You're right that terminology is a challenge in this regard. FamilySearch hasn't given us specific names for these different varieties of sources, so we just have to do the best we can so that we all know what we are talking about in these discussions.
I do have a question about the last topic you raised — what can be deleted — as I am not seeing the same thing you are.
You made the claim that "if you view an index derived source, the only tools available are…" and then provided a screen shot that did not have a Delete option. You didn't provide a link, so I can't see that exact case. In fact, I have visited at least a dozen index-derived sources that I created and in every single case, I do see a Delete option. It's only when I visit an index-derived source that someone else created that the Delete option is missing.
For example, in the 1920 US Census for Mary Ferrell, I see this:
That's certainly a FamilySearch system source derived from an index, and I see the Delete option, just as I do on every other source I created. It doesn't matter whether I start from the list of sources on a person profile, or from my Source Box. I always see the Delete option. And that makes sense to me; I'm not deleting anything in the underlying system data, but rather just the source that was created for me that builds upon that underlying system data. But when you visit that exact source, you won't see the Delete option, since you didn't create the source.
I see no difference between these index-derived sources and the sources created from unindexed images in this regard. Those latter sources are also created based on (different) underlying system data. They can also be deleted, but only if I was the one who created them.
The ability to delete is a point you emphasized heavily:
It's this ability to completely remove this document derived source from the system that has led me to consider index derived sources as "system" sources and document derived source as a hybrid type that are not really system sources but also not purely user created sources.
I personally don't think the ability to delete is a key distinction, but since you thought it was, I thought I should share my contrasting experience. I think it's clear that these are both FamilySearch sources, but the difference in origin is the key point: one comes from an indexed record, and one comes from an image. That's the only distinction we need to make clear when we label these two kinds of sources.
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I thought I knew all the places where there are hidden links that you can only see if you are able to use them. I either missed or forgot about that one on the sources. Thanks for the correction.
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