Improved visualization of relationship sources

LegacyUser

Brad Hurley said: I've been reviewing the research done by others on "my" family, and I've been having a hard time evaluating whether the information shown in the "Family Members" section of the Person Details page is supported by the attached sources. It's great that there is a sources page (and I wish more people used it), but sometimes the sources are hidden behind a paywall, are unavailable because of access restrictions, and (rarely) there are sometimes so many sources that it can be hard to figure out which are the ones that matter.

I thought this could be so much easier if there was a visual indicator on each person in the "Family Members" section.

This indicator would indicate the presence (or non-presence) of sources that are attached to the primary individual on the page (I'll call them person #1) as well as to the other person (I'll call them person #2). And if you clicked on the indicator, it would bring you to a page that would show every source that is attached to both people.

This indicator would also need to handle more indirect connections. For example, person #1 and person #2 might have no sources in common, but each of them might each have a source in common with the same third person (person #3). For example, the baptism records of two siblings -- both sources would link to the same parents. In this situation, the indicator might look different, and clicking the indicator would show the records that connected to person #3.

I know that it is possible to attach sources to a marriage (to document the spousal relationship), and to parents (to document a birth), but I find that these are rarely used, and that the sources are there at the individual level.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Recently (within the past year), sources that establish family relationships are added to the appropriate persons in the Family Section of a person's details page.

FamilySearch is a free site, but many sites require memberships to support their efforts. This has always been the case.

Evaluating the relationship of family members is something that needs to be done, but one of the things to do is to look through the person's change log to see if (and when) any merges have taken place. Sometimes, a user merged two records that are not for the same person, resulting in relationships that are not correct. I've recently come across one of those and only because I keep my own private (local) family tree management program and database, was I able to clean up the record and get rid of the superfluous names and sources, as well as restore / undelete the improperly merged record.

LegacyUser

Brett said: Brad

ALL "Sources" matter - 'the more the merrier'.
They give the individuals/persons, 'flesh and bones', so to speak.

You are correct, that access to some "Sources" is "Restricted"; and, such can be for a number of reasons, not just because "... they are hidden behind a paywall" (but, that said, such can be the case).

Sometimes, access to such "Sources" hat are "Restricted" can only be at/through a "Family History Centre" of the Church.

There is already a visual indicator(s) that "Sources" are attached to an individual/person; and, that indicate the number of "Sources" attached.

The 'Pedigree' view



The "Person/Details" 'Tab'



And, when you 'Select' the "Link" associated to those indicators, you are taken to the "Sources" 'Tab' for the individual/person concerned.

Plus, under the "Family Members" Section; if, you 'Select' the "Pencil" 'Icon' for, either, a "Couple Relationship"; and/or, a "Parent-Child Relationship", you are presented with a "Pop-Up" (or, "Modal" Window), that includes/lists any "Sources" that attached to that particular Relationship (if any, as you noted).

Where else were you expecting to see the visual indicator for "Sources", apart from those I have show?

Brett

.

LegacyUser

joe martel said: Great observations Brad.

On the Relationship object between 2 people there is a Sources section. The tools like Sourcelinker don't make use of it and is not frequently used by users. So Sources like marriage show on both persons., with different urls if they come from indexed FS records. So that's a complication, whereas on a user created custom source could be attached to multiple people. Yes, its a complication of the FS model. 

So there have been thoughts about seeing those "surrounding" sources that are on family members, but no traction on those ideas have happened and I wouldn't expect it. It's complex to compute and then find a user interface that a user could understand.

LegacyUser

Juli said: As Joe Martel hinted at, it's not so simple, because the way FS does things, index entries end up as person-specific, unique source citations. This means that parents and their children actually often share exactly zero sources, despite being mentioned on the same line of the same page of the same baptismal register.