Duplication of sources.

LegacyUser

Colin Cameron said: Just done my first merge under the new/changed setup so it's possibly an error on my part.

Following the death of a relative last week myself and another family member have both changed our 'living' record for this person to 'deceased' and I've just merged these two records. I've done this before with no problems (for recently deceased people - I've done thousands of merges).

This time however we each had the 1930 census, 1940 census, and her marriage in 1947, attached to our 'living' records. Following the merge, the surviving record now has two copies of each of these. They are genuine duplicates with matching URLs.

I would have expected the merge to realise that these are the same source (they have the same URL) and only keep one copy. I don't see any way to hide or delete one of them. The only option appears to be 'detach', but the source is valid so I don't think 'detach' is the right option and I suspect that if I detach a source with that URL then they would both disappear.

Any thoughts?

LegacyUser

Brett said: Colin

'Yes' ... a possible problem/issue ...

Now ...
That said ...

NOT in relation to the NEW "Merge"/"Combine" process ...

But ...

'Yes', you are correct that the "System" usually recognised that they are the "Exact" SAME (ie. URL); and, you ended up with ONLY one.

It has happened in the past, that in some instances (and, I do not know WHY; well, I cannot remember - there were reasons), the "System" DID NOT (for whatever reason) recognise that they are the SAME (ie. URL); and, you ended up with Two (x2) of the "Exact" SAME "Source".

If they ARE the "Exact" SAME; then, you can "Detach" one (probably the latest one that was attached); then, "Refresh"; and, there should not be any attempt by the "System" to offer the "Sources" as a "Hint".

Unless, of course, some problem/issue has 'crept' into things ...

Give it a try, see what happens, you cannot 'break' the "System".

At least, you will know for certain ...

Brett

.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Except in the occasional "unexplained situation", it should not be possible to attach the same source to two individuals - though I have never checked if the behaviour is any different with IDs for the living.

Brett's experience is the same as mine (and many other participants of this forum). Just detach one of the identical sources (same URL) to solve the problem. I have occasionally used this procedure when, somehow (though not due to a merge), an identical source has become attached to an individual.

LegacyUser

joe martel said: When you create and Attach a Source the URL may be to the same record/site. Each time that happens a new Source is created. That Source has other fields than URL, like notes, title, citation, and Reason for the Attach. 

During a merge the surviving Source is there, and bringing over the Source from the person to be deleted makes can make it look like the same source, but is likely different. The computer could delete one but which one? One Source may have great Notes while the other has sparse notes, but a great Citation and title. 

You can choose to keep both Sources or Detach the one that is lesser or redundant.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Good points, Joe, but still does not explain how it is possible to attach the same FamilySearch source (with identical URL) either to the same individual or (as in this case) to two separate individuals.

In the latter case, perhaps the behaviour is different for those marked as living. After all, not too long ago sources could not be attached to "Living" IDs at all, if my memory serves me correctly.

LegacyUser

joe martel said: Paul, if you have an example (PID, URL) I could explain that exact case.
1. You can Attach the same exact same Source to multiple Persons (today only via the SourceBox in FS). If you look at the URL when your are viewing the Source the sourceId parameter will be the same: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/sources/sourceVE?&sourceId=9GM7-H5K
2. Except in very rare situations, the same sourceId cannot be Attached to the exact same PID. This happens because the different services and redundancy hiccup and will Attach the same source to that PID in the same user transaction. 

For any of these situation the User can Detach one of the redundant Sources. Today Living and Deceased Persons have the same Source attach/merge/detach behavior.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Thanks for your prompt response, Joe. Apart from the position you mention in your point "1", I can also attach image-only pages to multiple individuals, of course. (I was pleasantly surprised to find that the system could nevertheless recognise the fact that the page had already been attached, if I tried to attach it again to the same ID.)

I guess your point "2" covers most (if not all ) of the instances where the action is possible without the SourceBox being a factor. I am trying to replicate an instance where this is possible. I have a theory that it might be connected with a modal / static windows / overlay page situation. I believe, on at least one occasion, I have added the source, then added it again almost immediately to the same ID, due to the "original" page still being open. I have tried to repeat the suspected method of adding a source twice during this process, but have been unable to do so. I'll try and try again!

LegacyUser

Paul said: Re the above:

My "first try" was unsuccessful (as somewhat expected). I went back to the tab that was still inviting me to "Review and Attach Record", but clicking on this showed the Detach (rather than Compare) option, so unable to add the source again that way. Then went to the Person page, which I had not refreshed, so was still showing the source under "Research Help". Clicking on the "Review and Attach" link from here led me to the Source Linker page, which again showed the Detach option.

So, yes, duplicate attachment is probably not due to a specific bug / incorrectly working process, but to an intermittent situation(s), such as you describe (in point "2").

I won't give up quite yet, but am pessimistic about replicating my previous experiences (in adding same URL to same ID) any time soon!

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: What you say Joe makes perfect sense now - it had never occurred to me that this might be a reason why there might be a duplicated source on a profile - as the result of a merge...

I wonder how many times I (or others) have said, "Yeah, sounds like there's been an error there somewhere..." Whereas the mechanism that you describe (2 merged profiles each having the same source already attached) doesn't require any error!

LegacyUser

Paul said: I'm still hopeful at least one user will be able to detail how they think a specific duplicate source (with same FS indexed record URL) came to be duplicated in the Sources section of a particular ID. "Merge" and "SourceBox" explanations excluded! (Because definitely neither of these were factors when it happened to me.) I accept Joe's comments at "2" almost certainly present the correct reasoning, but still think there just MIGHT be a further, more specific reason to be found.

LegacyUser

JT said: Paul - because with "Living" people, the system can't / won't tell you the PID of the Living person, because living PIDs are private. Per Colin, the same source was attached while both copies were "Living" people in two different accounts. So the system allows the same source to be attached to living people without marking it "already attached" in someone else's account.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Paul, in the example given in the OP the two live person PIDs had the same source attached to each of them (not my choice of terminology!). They were both converted to deceased. Since the same source was attached to each of the now "duplicate" persons, when they were merged, both sources showed up on the surviving PID.

Although the citations on each of the duplicate person records pointed to the same index information (i.e., that is why the URL is the same), the actual Titles, Notes, and description contained in each of the CITATIONS are unique. For this reason a human being would have to evaluate the contents of each of the citations to decided which of them to keep and which to delete.

So you can't really automate the selection of which citation to keep because that decision is not straight forward. One might have a description of how a value was incorrectly indexed where the other had nothing. But it might also have an uninformative title where the title on the other Citation was far better. It just needs to be cleaned up by hand.

Remember, a CITATION is the thing that *connects* the index file and the associated image with the person's source list. The citation is the thing that points to a specific item in the index file. But each citation has its own Note and its own description and title. In this case they both point to the same index file item, so if you change one the other doesn't change with it.

Essentially what you have is two references to the same index file item and image. But the citations (i.e., the references) ARE NOT DUPLICATES, they only share the common reference point. You have to decide which Citation to keep.

By the way, this is why if you copy a citation out of a source list into your source box and then paste it to another person record, you are now sharing a citation between the two person records. If you change the notes or title on one, the change will also show up on the other.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Jon

Although I was looking for general examples, too (e.g. how the same URL could be attached to two "deceased" IDs, OR attached twice to one ID), I feel you have provided sound reasoning of why it was possible in the example raised in this thread. That is, how it can happen when two "living" IDs are involved. Thanks.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Thanks for your response, Jeff. Now all I would like to see (as mentioned again below) are examples of how users think they managed to get, say, two sources with the same URL into the Sources section of one individual.

It seems to have happened to a number of us and the solution (detach one of them - if you wish) is straightforward enough, but - like me - nobody seems to remember (excepting actions involving their SourceBox or a merge) any other way that they managed to get these duplicate sources into the Sources section. Understandable, I suppose, when a result does not follow a planned action - and is probably down to an unexplained glitch, as Joe suggests.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Paul,

There USED to be a bug where even after a source was attached to a PID, it might be reintroduced again to that same PID. Attaching it again would cause this, but FS seems to have fixed that.

You can still get duplicates due to glare conditions occurring with browsers. One way this used to be demonstrable would be to open 2 different windows with that source linker on the same source. When you attach the source in one window, the second window doesn't know that the source has been attached yet (unless you do a refresh). So you could then attach the same source as second time from the second window.

I don't know if this is still possible, but there are several permutations of this same concept, so I'm sure that situations can still happen that can result in a double attachment--especially when users use multiple tabs and windows to get around weaknesses in the system such as modal windows.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Thank you again for your useful comments, Jeff. These seem very logical explanations to me.