Death Date entered without a Historical Record

LegacyUser

BFR said: Death Date entered without a Historical Record. If there is not a Historical Records, the date should not be entered in the "Death entry field" Instead - add a "Custom Event" date, place and a reason why this information is correct. Entering an "erroneous" in the "Death entry field" hamper an import of Historical Records for "Death info"

LegacyUser

gasmodels said: many records from the earlier systems had death information entered with no sources so you are faced with existing records that have information added. you have a choice remove possibly good information and add to custom event or just leave and attempt to justify. The same behavior is there for birth and christening. I just leave the information and if I find better. I take the time to edit in the new information. yes it is sometimes a little work but I find it less effort than creating a custom event and copying information there and then attempting to move it back. To each his own way of doing things. One of the beauties of the open edit system is we all don't have to do everything the same way. If your suggestions works for you follow it but don't expect others to behave in the same way. I am sure FamilySearch will not force others to follow a detailed process.

LegacyUser

Paul said: So why should the Historical Record contain more accurate information than the detail held personally by a user? The FamilySearch and other death records I find frequently have ages at death that are completely wrong. Without matching evidence of a birth record / source the Historical Record for the death is often of little value - so do you believe the Vitals field for the BIRTH should be left blank in these cases?

Also, I would want firm evidence that, say, the John Smith (in the Historical Record) who died in Manchester in 1849 was the same John Smith as my ancestor, who died in that area around the same time.

Taken alone, I would not rate historical records so highly - I have found plenty of convincing looking ones attached to my relatives that relate to other individuals of similar identity.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: The behavior you are seeing is, I assume, in the Source Linker in which we cannot, at this point, replace existing information on a Family Tree record with the information in the hint.

If the information in the hint and the information on the Family Tree record is different, then you have to start doing real research rather then just attaching hints.

A few of the questions that need to be addressed:
1) Where did the information in Family Tree come from?
2) Can the research path used by the previous contributor be followed to find that source of that information?
3) Can I contact that other contributor and see where the information came from?
4) Is the hint applied to the wrong person?
5) Can I find confirmatory information that the hint is correct?

These are actually the reason the system was originally designed to prevent the Source Linker from replacing existing information. Hints are just hints. They can easily be wrong and you cannot see enough in the Source Linker to really resolve discrepancies.