Allow adding sources to living people
Allowing adding sources to living people would improve the genealogical soundness of Family Tree. Here's why: Record Hints often lead to finding new people. Today you have to stop attaching the record, go and create the new person, search for a death record, and then go back to attach the first record you found.
A better way would be to allow sources for living people, so that new people with their new sources can be added in the normal workflow with Record Hints. Of course the person will be hidden until a death date or declaration is made, but that can happen later.
Also, actually living people many times do have records. Why not allow adding them to the person? When they die, the sources will become viewable to everyone.
Comments
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joe martel said: absolutely want this. This has been a desired enhancement since Sources were first released.
The difficulty is handing the private information. Today all Sources are public and programming has to be done to support private Sources.0 -
Jon Andersen said: I think it would work better without private sources. Today I can save a record to my source box even if it contains information on living people. And I can attach it, so the information on living people in the record isn't hidden today.
Isn't it really the compiled information on living people that needs to be private, not the source?0 -
joe martel said: I worry a user will put their birth certificate, marriage to a previous marriage... on their living Person thinking that no other user will see that Source. It may be hard to find, but it is still there to be found. The software needs to err on the side of protecting privacy so the proper protocols need to be put into place to insure the intent of the user regarding privacy remains private. But they really do want to implement Sources on living Persons - just need to design it right the first time.0
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John Willard Gardner said: The beauty of FamilyTree is the ability to attach sources, but for Living records this is an inadequacy, in that you cannot attach sources. When we go to the trouble to find a source (often 1940 census or an obituary), the SourceLinker allows attaching the source to each family member. However, when some of them are still living, it will not allow attachment to them. It seems appropriate to do the linking only once to all mentioned -- having to wait until all names are deceased and then remember to go back and find the source again after they die is unreasonable.
I see no issues regarding privacy because the only information involved is from public records.0 -
joe martel said: Yes, this enhancement to attach Sources to living person is in the works. It will have to wait until after nFS is decommissioned.
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Paul said: If privacy is such an important issue here, why is it so easy to display information on living persons on Family Tree? For example, we are told to attach a source to a secondary person if they are mentioned in a record. Therefore, even when a living person is the prime person, his / her records can be shown as sources against deceased parents. In fact, not being able to view their person page does little to protect the privacy of a living individual, as detailed biographical details can also be shown on the person pages (under Notes, Discussions or Life Sketch) of his / her deceased parents.
Perhaps this is a topic that needs a separate thread, but there is very little detail about a living person that cannot be displayed elsewhere in Family Tree - so the "privacy" provided to the living in FT really doesn't stretch that far, does it?
The question arises whether FamilySearch (through user guides and elsewhere) should actively discourage patrons from attaching sources of a prime individual who is living to a secondary individual who is deceased.0 -
S. said: that is a bum, I am quite shocked it is not up the list.0
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Tom Huber said: Privacy laws, like all legal matters, vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. For instance, each state of the United States sets the minimum age that a person must reach before they can be married (with or without consent from parents/guardians).
The Church will almost always err to make sure that all requirements of law are met. This includes local jurisdictional matters, such as what legal documents can be examined and/or copied in that jurisdiction.
We may want to view such matters, or see something that is otherwise a problem, but when it comes to "living" individuals (those who were born less than 110 years ago and have not been found to be deceased), privacy is always held.
If a person adds a living person to Family Tree, only that account under which it was added can be viewed. This includes any sources that are attached to the living person when they are secondary to an attached event.
People have noted that they want to see if a source is already attached when viewing a potential source for a person. This is not currently available and I suspect that one of the reasons is because if attached to a living person, that could violate privacy laws.0 -
Tom Huber said: Actually, it does. If you know that a living person exists within Family Tree, you need to change the status to living or open a feedback case regarding the same. The case will be examined and the living person will no longer be visible. For all intents and purposes, the living person so entered is no longer part of the system and a search for a known person by ID will return "No results found."
This happened as a result of me removing a "deceased" status in the Death field with the reason for the change being that I could locate no death information. It was examined and the record of that person was removed. Now a search on that ID produces a "No results found" message.
I just checked the parents' records and there isn't even a mention under Display All Changes.0 -
Tom Huber said: Actually, it (the "privacy" provided to the living) does stretches that far. But there is a responsibility placed upon the patrons who use Family Tree because of its wiki-like "open edit" nature.
If you, for instance, know that a living person exists within Family Tree, you need to change the status to living (remove anything in the Death fields) or open a feedback case regarding the same. The case will be examined and the living person will no longer be visible. For all intents and purposes, the living person so entered is no longer part of the system and a search for a known person by ID will return "No results found."
This happened as a result of me removing a "deceased" status in the Death field with the reason for the change being that I could locate no death information. It was examined and the record of that person was removed. Now a search on that ID produces a "No results found" message.
I just checked the parents' records and there isn't even a mention under Display All Changes.0 -
Bosch said: Now we can add sources to living people, but we can not attach sources from the Source Box to living. I don't understand that if we have the documents we are not allowed to attach them until the person dies. It is absolutely inefficient.0
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Jeff Wiseman said: Bosch,
I just tried attaching a source from my source box to one of my living children and it worked fine for me.
When you say "we can not attach sources", do you mean that when you attach the source it fails, or do you mean that the mechanism to attach something from the source box to a living person in your private space is not provided?
Remember, if you just open your source box, you usually don't get any way to attach those sources, you have to go into the source list of the person you want to attach it to, and then select the "Add Source" button and then "Attach From Source Box".
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Bosch said: It seems that it only happens with sources that have attached documents, but I mean that *you can enter to the Source Box* and after that it is impossible to attach sources with documents because the word "Attach" at the right it is not there.0
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Jeff Wiseman said: Yea, if you just go directly into the source box, I don't think that it will let you "push" a source out to a specific record. I think that you need to "Pull" the source into the record you want it attached to.
Try what I showed and go to the living person's source list that you want a source attached to (that is already in your source box). Then try to attach it as shown above.
Also, if you are not already aware of it, source in your source box will behave quite differently (and confusingly) depending on whether they are sources of index files or of unindexed files.
For example, if you copy a source for "Bill Williams" in the 1940 Census (an indexed source) to your source box, it will be pointing to the Bill Williams data in the 1940 Census' index file. Therefore you couldn't also attach it to (say) his wife, even though she was in the same Census. You would need to get a source that points to HER data in the index file for the 1940 Census.
If you get things mixed over like this, the source linker will show you a lot of confusing information including multiple links to what should be a unique source.0 -
Bosch said: No, I don't go directly to the Source Box, Try you what I said. Try to add to a living person a previously created source with a document attached.0
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David Newton said: The other way round this particular conundrum might be to create and attach the source first and THEN add a document to it.0
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Bosch said: Yes it worked. So, we can deduce that it is not something desired but a bug.0
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Mark Hamilton Dewey said: You can always mention sources in the notes.0
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I know we cannot show info on living people unless we are the ones who entered the data. However, I believe it would speed up the process of finding information and relatives if we added a new feature.
😁When I click on a source, such as a census, and attach it to a living or deceased person would it not help if I was told that this source was already connected to a living person and then give me the contact or "Created By" info of that person. I then could contact them as a possible relative and ask if they have any knowledge of the persons status (still living or not).
Even if this person is not living at least the system has told me of others working on this line.
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@davidmburns As you mention - living persons are currently stored in your personal protected space for confidentiality of such profiles. Thus any relation can create a duplicate living/protected profile which contains any attached records they find/attach or any memories they may want to contribute. There have been other community posts about the difficulty of resolving these duplicates upon death. Currently there is not an easier way of sharing living profiles and resolving such duplication - the duplicates will just need to be merged after their death. But perhaps Family Groups will allow a path forward toward that goal in the future...? There are also current capabilities of adding friends with whom you may want to share discoveries or attachments of records:
https://www.familysearch.org/eurona/feed/friends
But as you mention you might need to discover the relations before adding them as friends or in a Family Group. Sometimes you can discover living relations through investigative descendancy searching - good luck!
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I do not think you actually responded to my suggestion.
If I attach the 1940 census to a living person what would be the harm in allowing me to attach it but also having a message show up saying that it has been attached also by the following: and list any contact ID's which have also attached the same census. This does not reveal any personal info but does offer the ability to contact those doing exactly what I am doing. I could then ask questions such as do you know if this person is still living? Did they marry...etc...
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But how could you contact those who have created these IDs when (due to confidentiality) you can't view their (the IDs) to detail obtain this information?
I understand the point you are making, but FamilySearch (after many years of looking into the issue of us being able to collaborate with others working on the same living persons) apparently has still to find a way of addressing the issue without breaching confidentiality codes.
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Thank you for the response. I am beginning to understand. The ID's would have to carry a buried link as they do now so that when you click on one you could send them a message.
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