What can I do with a Legacy NFS source?

LegacyUser

Max J. Evans said: What can I do with a Legacy NFS source? Specifically, where are sources like this: urn:familysearch:source:2811361357?

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Detach them and be rid of them. These are chaff that got blown in during the source transfer process.

LegacyUser

Cynthia Louise Van Dam said: Some sources in NFS were valuable,but not things like this. Gordon is right just detach and forget about them. That kind of source was part of the reason for the creation of FamilyTree.

LegacyUser

Heather McPhie said: If you are not the contributor of the source, then you can either detach it or edit it. I sometimes see Legacy NFS Sources that have enough information on them that I can reformat it a little and make it useful. Others don't even have enough information to do that. IF YOU ARE THE CONTRIBUTOR, then I would recommend deleting the source out of the system instead of just detaching it. However, you can only delete it if you were the original contributor.

LegacyUser

Cathy Anderegg said: And this is a cautionary tale, isn't it. Those folks who put the nFS legacy sources in on their ancestor records did a very poor job, in many cases, so much so that we can't understand them or find them at all useful.

I wonder how we are doing today? Attaching sources from the new functions, seems great where the extracted data, the source citation and title, and frequently the actual document is right there to view and assess.

But sometimes I wonder about the Create A Source template sources. I wonder if we are getting enough information in notes, and other field to justify keeping them 20 years from now.

LegacyUser

Jaynie Flippen Anderson said: FamilySearch is my favorite genealogy site! I don't have to pay to use it and it is easy to read and use. Other sites constantly withhold information unless I pay to join.
The downside I am seeing is all the NFS sources; thank you for explaining why this mess happened. I am unwilling to pay to join Ancestry.com however to be able to figure these confusing sources out. I guess I'll just continue to wade through the muck in order to get to the part I enjoy, which is the genealogy part!

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: NFS sources, unless they actually contain useful information that is easily found and can be expanded upon, should probably be removed after attempting to get in contact with the contributor through the FamilySearch Leave a Message system.

I asked about the number in the source (https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...) and no one had any answer as to how to use it to get to the original source. Therefore, it is useless. There is an additional side track in the discussion (about half-way down) https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

If no response is received within a month or so, I would go ahead and delete the Legacy NFS Source(s) with reasoning similar to "This source is incomplete. I have left a message for the contributor(s), but have not heard from them in response. Source deleted."

LegacyUser

Steve Smith said: Phew! I thought I was the only one who couldn't make sense of this Legacy NFS source that is pointless

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Yeah, because most Legacy sources (including those that I know I contributed) do not retain enough original information to be useful. The transfer of data from the previous system newFamilySearch wasn't very good, but it did not help that the manually creation of sources were confusing at best. My sources were transferred in from my local database, so I know which ones were mine.

For the most part, the Legacy sources, if enough information is there to identify them, can be found either in FamilySearch itself, or somewhere on the internet or in a book.

Where possible, I now try to replace the legacy source with one created by the source-linker from FS historical records. Then I'll clean it up since the source linker brings over the indexed data, which often contains transcription errors. I'll correct the source itself and when a source is of a child, spouse, or parent of the person to which the source has been applied, I'll correct the title and add the date of the event so I can chronologically sort the source list.

When I responded originally, we could (usually) communicate through the Message system in FamilySearch with the original person who entered the source. I don't know if that ability still exists, but considering that the initial transfer was largely done in 2012 and pretty much finalized in 2015, making a connection with the original person is almost non-existent.

LegacyUser

Kayla Wonnacott said: ok guys, but how do you open them, people are saying that they don't usually have enough information to save but I have no idea how to even find out.

LegacyUser

Kathryn Grant said: Can I offer another opinion? As one who spent probably dozens of hours carefully attaching sources in nFS, I am so grateful FamilySearch brought them over. True, some of the legacy sources I've seen provide little or no value. But some do.

When I find a legacy source I added in nFS, I will try to find the equivalent source in FS Historical Records. If I can, then I attach that source and delete the legacy source.

But if the legacy source offers even the barest hint, I'll leave it there. You never know when the person who originally input it might find it and add more information.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: You open them just like any other source. Click on the Title or click on View Source under the title.

If the trouble you are having is that you click on the source title, it opens, and there is no information there, that is the type of "source" people are saying can just be deleted.

(As always, posting here a specific example or the URL of an example can help with explanations.)

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Whenever I see a Legacy Source that is actually a source, I do spruce it up and get Legacy out of the title.

I only detach ones that are not sources and contain no information.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: I do the same as Gordon. If there is any kind of significant source information, I'll add to it, or replace it if the source exists within FamilySearch. Otherwise, I'll expand it to include the pertinent information that allows others to go to the original source documents.

And, if there is no usable information (anything that actually can get me to a source), then I delete that "legacy source."

LegacyUser

Carolyn Wheeler said: Well, I’m confused. How do I know if something is a legacy source? What does it look like?

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: They all have Legacy in the title which is why everyone refers to them using that term. If you ever run into one, it will be obvious.

LegacyUser

Chas Howell said: The title starts with, "Legacy NFS Source: ..."

LegacyUser

David Newton said: Yep. Most of them are utter nonsense or so information-poor as to be useless. In those cases just detach to get rid of the clutter.

LegacyUser

Carolyn Wheeler said: Ok, thank you. I guess I have never seen one.

LegacyUser

Kathryn Grant said: Next time I see one, I'll post the PID here.

LegacyUser

Kathryn Grant said: My favorite no-value legacy sources are the ones that simply say "dead." (Probably originating from someone's GEDCOM.)

LegacyUser

Amy Archibald said: Kathryn, my favorite are the ones that say "living" and the person is deceased and I have a handful of sources to prove they are dead.

LegacyUser

Robert Wren said: For more info see:

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/...

https://rejoiceandbeexceedingglad.blo...

https://web.archive.org/web/201505162...

http://blog.familyhistoryfanatics.com...

http://support.legacyfamilytree.com/a...

(likely more than anyone really wants to know on the subject)

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Here's an example of a type of Legacy NFS source that I run across frequently. These seem to have been generated when someone flagged a piece of information as having a source but then did not really create a source. I seems the person just entered what type of source it was.



Since these have no useful information, I just detach them.

LegacyUser

joe martel said: This maybe came across from nFS as part of the migration of those legacy Sources. Was this on a 2012 PID?

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: Yes, these all came across when the New Family Search sources were migrated over into Family Tree. Since Carolyn has never run across any of these on people she was working on and was wondering what they were and why people were discussing what to do with them, we were just trying to find an example for her as to what we were taking about. (See her post three main entries above this one.)

I occasionally run across ones that actually do contain valid sources and I do clean those up and give them a real title to preserve and improve the information they contain.

LegacyUser

Stan Squires said: If I can not open these access the sources that are being listed than they are of no use in determining what is correct or not correct. A useless source only gives one person satisfaction.
I say that FamilySearch should tell me how to read and understand the value of the source or stop accepting them as a such.
Stanley Squires

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Any Legacy record is from a previous system which cannot be accessed.

In all cases where a Legacy record is involved and nothing of value can be seen, I delete the record. In my reason statement for deleting the the record (usually registered as a note),

In other instances, I indicate cleanup and the location of any information provided.

Legacy Sources are usually covered with an actual source-linked source and so those get deleted with reference to the actual source.

LegacyUser

Stan Squires said: That sounds like a good idea BUT I do not like the words that Tom Huber used as,
Any Legacy record is from a previous system which cannot be accessed. That infers that it could be access in another way. I say use it or drop it period, End it forever
Stanley Squires

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: A Legacy record may be a discussion, a note, or a source. They all have similar characteristics, so I used the term "record" to be all inclusive, not just for the sources, but also with respect to discussions and notes.

Legacy discussions can usually be deleted, which cannot be done with discussions started with FamilySearch. With those, only the person who started the discussion can delete the discussion.

LegacyUser

Kirsten E Swanson said: There are some legacy-NFS sources that cite me as the contributor, but I have not found a way to delete them. Do you know how I can do that? They were in my NewFamilySearch account, and then FamilySearch migrated them for me, but I do not wan them any more, since better documentation exists.