Edit Source names
Can you please make it possible to edit, or add to, the source names in the source list for an individual. It is extremely aggravating to try and figure out which source you want when there are 5 that have the same name.
Give us the ability to add "Juan Perez birth record" to the source that says "Mexico Civil Registry 1805-1985" because there are 3 that say the _EXACT_ same thing.
Answers
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I am seeing the option to Edit titles of Sources on persons I just checked (on Sources tab on a person page) - Example: KFB5-K7S. Can you give a Person ID (PID) where you are not seeing Edit available?
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I've never noticed that. I'll go look for it.
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Jerry
It's 'Brett'.
I "Edit", the "Titles", of "Sources", in the "Sources" 'Tab', of individuals/persons, just about each and every day.
[ And, NOT just the one's from 'FamilySearch' ... ]
And ...
I have NO problems/issues doing so.
Pictorially ...
I hope, that this may help/assist, somewhat.
Brett
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Jerry
Here is a "Knowledge Article" in 'FamilySearch':
How do I edit a source in Family Tree?
https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-edit-a-source-in-family-tree
I hope, that this may also help/assist, somewhat.
Brett
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Found it. I thought that "Edit" link was to edit the data in the source.
Now, if they could make it so the edit of the source name will transfer over to other people that source is attached to.
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😀
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OH!! I didn't realize the name change didn't apply to all. BUT, if you edit the name of the source in your source box, the name WILL be updated everywhere it is used as a source. So I need to remember that.
I think the reason that there are 2 options is very subtle. Changing a bad name to a good name is one you want to apply everywhere the source is used. However, changing a name to "Source doesn't apply to this person", which I have done, is one that should NOT be populated to all persons. I have now learned something new!
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The scope of source editing depends on the type of source.
Citations of indexes (basically, anything attached using Source Linker) are designed to be unique, with each person in the index having a separate index entry and corresponding citation. Adding a transcription of a baptism on the child's Sources tab does not add it on the parents' Sources tabs if the citations come from an index. Likewise, editing the title of the citation on a parent's Sources tab only affects that one citation; the citations for the same indexed event on the other parent's or the child's Sources tab will not change.
When you use your Source Box to attach a citation, you're attaching one instance of it, and all of the instances are linked: if you add a transcription of the funeral notice on Uncle Bob's Sources tab, it'll have a transcription on Aunt Linda's Sources tab, too. If you change the source title anywhere, it'll change everywhere.
The "Attach to Family Tree" button on unindexed images also creates linked citations: everyone you attach it to will have an instance of the same citation, and editing it in one place will change it everywhere. If you remember the "add to my source box" checkbox, then you can add the citation to further profiles, and they'll all be linked together. Unfortunately, if you forget that checkbox, or if someone else created the citation, then you cannot continue the chain.
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There are multiple reasons why your edits of source titles don't (and shouldn't) be seen by other users. One that has not been mentioned is translation. Source titles are translated into the various languages that FamilySearch supports. So if I am a German speaker and look at the source, I'll see the source title in German. If you edit your copy of the source title to be some different English text, I don't want to see that -- perhaps I can't even speak English. I still want to see the title in German.
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Where do you see the source titles being translated, @Alan E. Brown ? I wasn't aware of this feature.
If I look in English I see:
In Norwegian:
In German:
Everything is translated except the title. Could it be that the title is generated using the current language when first attached but is not changed after that?
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@Gordon , the title of the collection isn't translated, but the title of the source often contains more than just the title of the collection. Here's an example from one of my ancestors:
Here's that same example in German:
The "in entry for" part is translated into German, as are the quotation marks. If I had edited the source title, those parts of the title would no longer be translated when I view it in a different language. That's not a problem if those edits are only visible to me. But if title edits were visible to everyone, as some have suggested, then they would see the title exactly as I edited it, with no translation possible.
The examples you chose for source titles don't contain translatable text (just a name and the collection title, which isn't translated). So the only difference in the languages you chose is the German quotation marks. But as you can see from my examples, there could be more translatable text in other cases.
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@Gordon Collett , a FamilySearch source title consists of multiple elements. It will generally start with the person being referenced, then some optional information such as "in the household of {person}" or "in entry for {person}" and then the collection title. Some of those elements such as names and collection titles are not translated, but the other parts can be translated into whatever language the user is viewing the page in.
Here's an example in English:
And here's the same example in German:
You can see that for the first entry, there's no translated text, so the only change for German is in the quotation marks. But for the other two entries, there are other words that are translated into German. If I had edited the source title, then it would be essentially frozen into whatever text I chose (which would have started with whatever language I was in when I started the edit).
If, as some have suggested, edited titles then became visible to all users, we would lose the ability to translate any part of the source title. We would also be constrained to see what the editors chose to preserve. They could completely change a useful title such as Jessie T Berrett in household of Walter Berrett, "United States Census, 1910" into Grandma's census record, which would not be nearly as good.
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@Gordon , I have tried twice to give a detailed response, and neither time has the post persisted after I apparently posted it. So I'll give you the short answer.
For source titles such as John Smith in the entry for James and Anne Smith, "Norway Births", the "in the entry for" and "and" will be translated, and the quotation marks will also be translated (you can see that in your example for German, where the collection title starts with a baseline quotation mark). My earlier post may have unintentionally given the impression that the actuall collection title would be translated, but it is not.
If user-edited source titles then became visible to all users, those parts of the source title would no longer be translated. And we would also run into problems where someone edits a nice clear title such as the example I posted above and change it to Grandpa John's birth record.
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Here's an example in German:
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Comment already mentioned I think. Might be the language logged in under when initially attached ... (Redundant I think - go ahead and delete)
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Looks like the site finally found and posted all your vanishing response, @Alan E. Brown
I see what you mean with the source title but not the collection title being translated. This led me to do some experimenting and I discovered that the source titles are not actually being translated. There is just a different title for each supported language. Some of these language specific titles are in the language the site is set to but sometimes the title has apparently not been translated into that language yet so the default English version is used.
Here is my experiment and its results.
I set the site to Norwegian and attached a source. I still got the English title:
Switching to German, however, I do get a German title:
I edited this title:
Then switched back to English were I found the edit was not present:
Wondering if it erased the edit while "translating" I switched back to German to find it still there:
Switching to Norwegian, I have the English version with no edits:
So I edited the Norwegian version:
And find that I now have three different source titles depending on the language the site is in. Cycling between them I see:
Which leads me to the conclusion that the program is not actually translating anything. It actually stores a different source title for each language and edits to a title affect only the one specific language currently being displayed.
Anyone have any confirmation or refutation of this theory?
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Boy, you were thorough.
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@Alan Brown
Well, I'm not so concerned that you could see my edits, but I wish they transferred over to other people in the same family so that I don't have to make the same edit for everyone mentioned in that source.
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One trouble with these boards is that we really don't know each other, our levels of experience with Family Tree, or what we already clearly understand. So forgive me if this post is about things you all understand perfectly well. But it is important to understand why title changes don't go anywhere on FamilySearch system sources but go everywhere on outside sources and why I've been sitting here for a few days concerned about @Gail S Watson's comment "changing a name to "Source doesn't apply to this person", which I have done."
The main difference between the sources marked with a pedigree icon vs a globe icon is that FamilySearch system sources with that tree are what they call "person-centric sources." The source is designed to apply to one and only one person and should be attached to one and only one person. The reason for this is that the FamilyTree program is able to take all the information in that source such as the person's name, age, and family relationships to find other sources for that person. That is why it is very important to detach an incorrectly attached source rather than rename it. That bad source will attract more bad sources based on it and supply them as hints.
Likewise it is important to attach all the duplicate versions of a source. The more good system sources on a person, the more likely it is that the program will find all the other system sources for that person.
The source linker does obscure this property a bit. it makes it look like a census source for a family of ten is one source being attached to that family as we see all ten names nicely lined up on the left hand side. However, what we are actually seeing there is ten different, unique sources, each one of them being attached to ten different, unique people.
Changing a title on a system source only changes the title on that one single source. Since that source is attached to only person, there is nowhere else for it to change.
Contrariwise, a outside source we create which has a globe icon is a more traditional "source-centric" source. There is a single copy of it that can be attached to however many people we want. It contains no information about the individual it attaches to which is accessible to the FamiyTree program and has no influence on the Hints routine. If it is attached to an incorrect person, it does nothing more than clutter up the person's source page and potentially deceive someone evaluating the record which still makes it important to detach an incorrect source.
Changing a title on a outside source only changes the title on that one single source. However, since that single source is attached to multiple people, it is changed everywhere it is found.
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Gordon Collett If you have attached a source to multiple people FROM YOUR SOURCE BOX, then editing the title of the source while in the source box will distribute that title change to all people who you have it attached to.
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That is correct. Also, editing that source title on any one person it is attached to will change the title on that person, on every person it is attached to, and in the source box. It doesn't matter where you edit it. Even if you have removed it from your source box then go to a person it is attached to and edit the title, the title will be changed everywhere it is found on other people.
FamilySearch System sources should only be attached to one, single individual. Never more than one. And there is really never much reason to put them in the source box anyway. Non-system sources can be attached to as many people as you desire.
Just to be painfully clear:
In this view, I have not attached one system source to three people. I have attached three different system sources, with three different URLs, to three different people:
One way to think about this, is that what you see on the source page is not really the source. It is merely a marker or flag that points to where the source actually resides in the system which triggers the browser to go find it and display it. That is why sometimes when the network or hardware is having a problem you will go to the source page and see "Source Title" and nothing else. When you edit the title of a source, you are really only editing it in one place. Then the next time the flag triggers the browser, it goes and gets the new version.
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One nitpick ('cause I'm good at those): both indexed and unindexed FamilySearch sources get the same tree icon.
The 1837 citation is an index entry, i.e. the kind of source that should only be attached once. The 1862 citation, on the other hand, is an unindexed image of a funeral notice, and applies to nine different people. It should be treated just like the MatriculaOnline citation from 1846, which is a birth record that applies to seven people. The type of icon doesn't tell you whether it's an individual or group source.
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Point taken. I keep forgetting about those un-indexed but attachable sources which do not connect to a person but rather to the entire page of the image and do not have any of the underlying data the indexed sources do. But we can only edit within four hours of posting now so I can't go back and correct anything. It would be nice if they had a different icon.
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Those non-indexed images are amazing though. I have scrolled through some of those collections for hours finding only nuggets of family information, but just enough to keep the “addiction” alive.
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