Make it Easier to Attach Individual Sources to Relationships

LegacyUser

Brad Hurley said: I think it is great that we can attach sources to relationships, but it is harder than it needs to be.

If there is a source that documents a relationship (to a spouse, or to a parent), and that source is already attached to one of the individuals in the relationship but is not in my Source Box, there is no easy way to attach that source to the relationship.

Instead, I need to copy the source to my Source Box. By creating a copy, I lose the information about the other individuals that are attached to the source, so I then manually reattach all the other individuals on the copy of the source, and then I attach the source to the relationship. Lots of steps involved.

It would be great if there was an option to "Attach Individual Source(s)" (in addition to "Attach from Source Box") on a relationship. I envision this would bring you to a page that looks like the Source Box, but instead shows the sources listed on any of the individuals in the relationship. From there, we could attach applicable source(s) to the relationship.

LegacyUser

Brad Hurley said: On the page that lists the individual sources, it would be great if the sources were sorted so that the ones attached to the most people in the relationship would appear at the top, and the ones attached to the least people in the relationship would appear at the bottom.

That way, if a parental relationship is attached to the father, mother, and child, that would be an excellent candidate for being a parental relationship source, so that should appear at the top of the list. And if a marriage relationship is attached to the bride and groom, that would be an excellent candidate for being a marriage relationship source, so that should appear at the top of the list.

LegacyUser

Robert Wren said: Brad, there is already two options for sorting a PID's source - either chronological order or custom. Custom sorting allows the user to sort by any method chosen (manually).

As far as atraching a (marriage) source to the relationship, at one time it was done automatically, now you are correct - the process is cumbersome. Personally, I simply ignore adding it to the marriage area. (Please don't tell anybody). The marriage source listed in the PID sources seems adequate to me - and easier to find.

I'm guessing someone will offer a rationale for doing it under 'marriage. '

LegacyUser

Juli said: Like Robert, my solution to the cumbersome relationship source area is to not use it. For marriages, I put a short reference to the source (the URL or the title or some such) in the reason box for the event. For parent-child relationships, the only time I bother with the relationship area is if it's non-biological, but again, I don't bother with the sources. There's only so much duplicated effort I'm willing to go through, and this far surpasses the limit.

LegacyUser

Brad Hurley said: I agree that people don't use relationship sources because it is too hard. I don't use them very much, even though I think they would be extremely helpful. That's why I made this suggestion -- if it were easier, it would be much easier for people to document relationships.

LegacyUser

Brad Hurley said: I totally understand! I hope that the folks at Family Search see that there are a bunch of people here who care about sources but who are avoiding doing things the way they want because it is too hard.