New Source Linker feedback
Answers
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The Source Linker engineering team is investigating the issue with the return to old source linker link. The reality is the old Source Linker is on very old technology that must be replaced soon. This type of software has a lot of complex logic. Our intent is to offer access to both old and new for a period of time so that if there is a bug in the new Source Linker code, patrons can continue attaching with the old Source Linker. However, the time will soon come when we need to shut off the old Source Linker. Your detailed feedback on the new Source Linker has been very helpful. Many reported issues have been fixed and we have another release this coming week that will resolve most of the issues reported by the community. Thank you for your patience and working with us to make the new Source Linker better. Being on a new technology platform will allow us to make future improvements to Source Linker that we just couldn't do with the old code.
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The new Source Linker is great, much improved from the 'fuzzy border' version I saw a few weeks ago. I love the direct editing feature; this will save a ton of time although it was a good memory exercise! The drag and drop feature seems nice and smooth, no problems now. The 'already attached' and 'other spouse' tools are much better now than when they were in tool tips; it was very difficult to copy IDs from the tips. I will be using the new version from now on, and I am very conservative about changes! Now if you could only get the feedback tab to work, I wouldn't have to blunder my way into these discussions anymore, ha!
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Another issue found with the current live new Source Linker - when having added a 'Reason to Attach Source' and you Change Person (focus to access another person on the list of connected people) the text you wrote is removed (before you take any other action)!
This presently makes little difference to me since this current new Linker offers nothing for me other than the opportunity to Link two people from a list - I continue to have to return to the Person Record (or use the Different button) and laboriously add all the elements needing correction (which the linker should have done).
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Probably related to my being so pedantic in my reasoning, but I do see a good reason not to consider Birth Registration year to be the same as Birth Year. In England, a considerable amount of births recorded, say, in early 1913 (or any other example, of course) will have taken place in the latter part of the previous year (1912).
I'm happy that the birth registration data cannot be carried across to the Birth field(s) under Vitals, because not only is it reasonably likely to represent the wrong year of birth, but - in England - the registration districts often straddled two counties. So, as an example, my relative was born in 1912 in Yorkshire, but the birth was registered in 1913 in the Stockton, Durham registration district, which dealt with births that took place in parishes both in the south of County Durham and in north Yorkshire.
As I have expressed regarding other issues, I prefer as little as possible to be carried over in this process, and for the accurate facts to be added whilst on the individual's Details page.
Another example is with Marriage Registration sources. Carrying across, say, an 1894 marriage registration as a "Marriage" will mean the already-inputted, precise 11 October 1894 marriage detail being replaced on the Details page(s) by the more vague year-only event.
In summary, the data in "Registration" sources does often conflict with the facts about both the actual date and place of the event.
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No, registration of an event doesn't necessarily match the event itself -- but the indexed event itself doesn't always match what's actually written, either. And in the part of the world that my relatives were from, the registration document includes the date and place of the event being registered, meaning that it is a source for those conclusions.
I, too, am leery of Source Linker (in both its old and new forms) being used to (blindly) carry over conclusions. Until/unless they completely revise the process, allowing us to see everything on the profile before making any changes, this will always be a recipe for inadvisable edits. All I want to be able to do is tag things properly and more easily.
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A birth-registration and marriage-registration are proof that person was born/married in that period/place, and until recently was only attached to the Events timeline - it never over-wrote the actual birth field (what was missing was that the Tag for birth sources was never updated to reflect the find).
I believe once I've found a credible Source it needs to be Linked, Tagged, and that all its data should, in some form, be copied over to the Events timeline.
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@A Andrews The "Events timeline" is simply a display of data associated with the person. I'm not sure what you mean by that term: are you talking about the Time Line tab for the person, or the Events section on the Details tab for the person?
In any case, the important thing to focus on is the actual data shown on the Details tab. That would be a vital event (such as Birth) shown in the Vitals section, or an Event (for example, a Birth Registration custom event) listed in the Events section. Each of those events can have supporting sources which are tagged to that event. The source linker can support the tagging, but I am wary of too much default tagging being done by the source linker. And I'm particularly wary of values being copied to the wrong field; by all means, copy the birth registration date to the date for a custom Birth Registration event, but don't copy it to the Birth event.
Many birth registrations in England have no data at all about the actual birth, and so although they give general support for the approximate date and place of birth, the actual birth may have occurred many miles from the registration location, and may have been in a different year. I've been working with some Belgian birth registration records that were registered as much as 20 years after the birth. I certainly don't want anyone assuming that those registration dates are suitable for the birth date!
I certainly agree that careful researchers should copy supported conclusions to the appropriate events, but the events on a person are for the very best conclusions, based on good judgment after examining all the available sources. Many sources will have incorrect or incomplete data, so even if the data is credible, I can't agree that "all its data should, in some form, be copied over to the Events timeline"; some data should not be copied to Events when it is inferior to the best conclusions for a particular event.
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"A birth-registration and marriage-registration are proof that person was born/married in that period/place"
Yes, the details written on the original registration documents should usually reflect the facts about these events. The problem with most of the sources I encounter on FamilySearch is that they only record what is displayed in the BMD indexes. This means (as with census sources) the year of birth year is frequently a year adrift and the placename (being shown as that of a registration district) too vague to make it clear even which (English) county the person was born in. Many of my relatives would turn in their graves if they could see their births had been recorded in Family Tree (or elsewhere) as having taken place in County Durham (as implied in the birth registration index) instead of Yorkshire!
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In support of @Paul W 's point about Birth Registration not being the same as Birth w.r.t Year. In England and Wales, there are many examples of "Late Registration" where a registration did not occur within a reasonable time after the birth. In some of these cases the registration was significantly late. There are a variety of reasons for this. See: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Civil_Registration search the page for "late registration"
and see: https://www.british-genealogy.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-48724.html which includes an example of very late registration.
There are also a some cases (presumption, based on the fact that I know of one case) where a child's birth is registered twice, first at the time of birth, possibly in the hospital, and then later in another county under the putative father's surname. It was defintiely not legal.
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The new source linker has this delightful feature to standardize places and dates as you add the item to a person. However, most unfortunately, when you then open that person, the dates you just added don't take; they remain the original, unstandardized versions. The standard places seem to take OK. You have to re-standardize the dates the old way.
Drag and drop is much improved. Scrolling is OK, I got used to it. Using new version exclusively now.
Can the little edit pens to the right be enlarged to match the larger ones in the person pages? The latter are a lot easier to find with pointer.
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One error you may receive when using the new source linker is an error in relationship type. In the old source linker, the relationship type would be a weird URL, but with the new source linker, the page just crashes.
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@Gordon Collett I just watch your informative video illustrating faults with "Behavior when attaching sources to families... ", (using the Norway Census), and understand what you where doing.
However I was horrified to see in that example that you skipped attaching other proffered data fields - "Marital Status" and "Residence" for example. I truly hope this was your behaviour only on demonstrating a fault and Not a regular behaviour - because this would mean losing vital data associated with that given individual from a new source.
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@A Andrews There is vital information, important information, interesting information, redundant information, and clutter.
If it is obvious from a person's detail page that the person was married because the spouse is sitting right there in plain sight, there is no need to clutter the detail page with an unneeded item under Other Information that the person was married. So, no, I would never carry that across from a census record.
If a person was born, was married, had ten kids, and died all in the same location, then again, no, if a census stated the person lived there, I would not clutter the detail page with such redundant information. If the census actually documented new information like a temporary residence somewhere else, then I would include it.
Not a bit of data is lost. It is all sitting right there on the source page where anyone who would like to view it can find it in about ten seconds.
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@A Andrews, no, Gordon is not losing anything.
I almost never take Source Linker up on its offers of events or facts to transfer. I believe Gordon feels similarly: we prefer to enter those things ourselves, because SL does not offer the needed transparency and flexibility. To start with, in my experience, 90% of the time, the event or fact is already there, even though this is invisible in both the old and new versions of Source Linker. In the small fraction of cases where a conclusion isn't there yet, SL almost always offers to put it in the wrong section, and/or does not allow entry of half of the conclusion. For example, the indexes of the Hungarian civil registrations only have a "registration place", so even if Source Linker deigns to offer, say, an actual death date (instead of just the registration date from the previous column, as a custom event), I have to go back to the profile anyway to enter the death place, and to tag the new source properly. It's much easier and faster for me to just skip Source Linker's annoying half-offer and enter the data on the profile's detail page.
It saddens me that the current re-work of Source Linker has not addressed any of its shortcomings.
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I do not want to make this a running theme, however as a final point - I strongly disagree with Gordon's words "... redundant information, and clutter" some may have access to so much data that a person's "Detail" seems 'cluttered', I have never come across such clutter, and Redundancy, in family research, actually mean Further Proofs of any given fact. Every source can add just a snippet more detail and proof to a Person's Events (and fill-out their history, which I attest also is a Timeline of their event).
Also that 'not a bit of data is lost...' is certainly Not true. Throughout the years of doing this I have seen sources vanish, and there are sources with restricted access (where many can't review that source to check and verify details). Very frequently the data extracted from the sources often can be inaccurate from the original source and so a corrected-detailed transcript posted on the Events line is essential in retaining and expounding the Details to a given persons life line.
I appreciate @Julia Szent-Györgyi's methods, but I find the opposite is true - when the Source Linker works it Does offer a starting value to be attached to the given Person's data (though it too frequently needs/needed editing for format and correctness), so only in that sense would we be 'entering things ourselves'.
I am shocked to read that it is matter-of-factly accepted that any data 'is invisible in both the old and new versions of Source Linker' - surely the true aim of this thread ('Source Linker') is to ensure that no data is Invisible to Source Linking and will be found - shown - and eventually attached to the Person's details. Even as 'Custom Events'.
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currently the corrections are NOT posted through to the Events or blank vital-field.
@A Andrews I think that you will find that new data in the indexed record that is not in a standardized format that is added with the + button in the New Source Linker is now appearing correctly in the person page.
And you will still need to go back and look at the sources from the person vital and events to add any additional data brought to light by the attached sources. This prevents existing vital information from being overwritten by Source Linker.
Also data edited in New Source Linker is permanent in the Person Page.
If you have another experience, please share URL and Person ID so we can get the developers involved.
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Here is an example of how the old and new source linker hide information.
Here is a christening record to be attached:
If you click the lower close link in the upper right you get this:
Now click Details to see information that is hidden in the Compare window:
This information includes the properly recorded christening on the Family Tree profile which shows there is absolutely no need to pull over a duplicate christening event under Other Information.
Now it is true that you can click on the person's name to open a side panel to show all the information which is a great addition to the new source linker that I really like:
But if it can be shown under Details in the Source Linker itself then why not show it under the Compare view instead of making people to hunt for it?
This example actually illustrates another danger in this ease of pulling everything from the left to the right. In this case, the index source is wrong. This particular parish register covers five churches, namely Os, Fusa, Holdhus, Strandvik, and Samnanger churches. There is absolutely no indication in the register as to where the christening event took place. The indexing process tacked "Holdhus Kirke" onto every event with no justification for doing so. In this case, "improving" the Family Tree profile by adding this information actually damages it by introducing erroneous information.
I agree it is much better to use attaching the hint as just the starting point but then using that hint to go to the original record to evaluate the information, check for errors in the index, and then add the correct information directly from the original source to the Family Tree profile instead of via the source linker.
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Here is an example of Source Linker caused clutter:
Here someone has pulled over in the Source Linker the mother's residence at time of birth for four different children and just left them as they found them. None of these need to be here. It is clearly obvious from the children's birth records that they were all born at Eldøy, Stord, Hordaland, Norway and obviously their mother was there at the time. Having four misspelled residences with no indication of what they are is not helpful.
I will say that one of the things we all need to learn in this collaborative environment called Family Tree is to be respectful and accepting each other style of working. If the user who attached these sources cared enough to determine the correct place name, added a date and description as to what the residences were, and tagged a few sources, something like this:
I would certainly leave this user's hard work alone. Since in the top image the user doesn't seem to care about the information and I do not think this duplication of the children's birth information is needed here, I typically just delete it with the reason given as "Child's birthplace. Not needed here."
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@SeanDay2 Can you provide a URL for a PID that has this issue. I will report it.
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@mikedavis2 Happier at seeing a minor fix of the Source Linker - as of today, when attaching a Baptism and correcting the Event Place what I type IS copied across to the Events as a Custom Event 'Baptism'. What does Not carry across it the Text from Reason (the old source-linker did carry this across) AND it still does Not attach a Tag to the found source to That added Custom Event!
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@ScottSeegmiller Just confirming the update has fixed the issue with Residence names. Editted place names are now correctly saved in the person record.
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New source linker still not transferring standardized dates or places to the attached person. You have to go back to Person to standardize them. The Burial event is especially annoying; if you enter the cemetery name within Source Linker, it shows it standardized. But when you go back to Person (after refresh) it shows only the place name (unstandardized) without the cemetery name at all! The odd thing is, below this unstandardized name it shows the standardized name, with the cemetery! How did it know this? It's like the standardized name is all there, it's just not showing.
This all makes the new source linker rather clunky, but I'm still using it instead of the old one.
By the way, the drag-and-drop feature is glitchy; sometimes the dragged record in left column lines up and finds the person in the right column OK, sometimes you have to drag it almost to the next person above it to see the blue highlight, and sometimes it doesn't show the highlight at all until you drop it 'early', then pick it up and drag it again, usually one more record. This happens all the time.
I will be glad to demonstrate this to anyone if they want to 'get on' with me but please don't ask for more screen captures!
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I confirm the drag-and-drop is VERY glitchy, to the point of being unusable. Some days, it's impossible to get it to line up with the correct person.
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Hope this is an appropriate forum. As others have noted, the "Feedback" link on the new linker doesn't work. Suggestion - if the fallback is to dump people into the forums, at least put them into an appropriate group so they don't have to figure it out by themselves.
So, a list of things I've noticed:
- On census documents, where there are multiple entries each with a location, when a correction was needed (which is quite often), the old linker would remember the correction and apply it on other entries. The new linker doesn't do this - every entry needs to be corrected individually.
- The old linker would always remember the reason I entered when attaching a source. The new version does, sometimes, but seems to forget if I change the person it's focused on.
- I see the new linker proposes quite a few new "facts" derived from the census. However, many of these are not lifetime attributes, but only true when the census was done. The most obvious is "Marital Status". Clearly if you're "Single" on a specific census, that doesn't imply that you were and always will be single but the "fact" doesn't make note of when it was declared.
- I noted a glitch on some census records (sorry, don't have the specific case). One of the "Facts" now proposed is "National Origin". For some reason it got repeated - the linker would propose "National Origin: English" twice. The first seemed non-functional though - clicking on the "+" did nothing (perhaps because it was a duplicate).
- The "Different" flags are nice but could be a bit smarter. Eg grave records don't often show "sex" so it shows up as "Unknown". It's distracting to have it flagged as "Different" when the actual profile has the actual sex. Also, if a record has just a year, that should match a profile with a full date if the years match (censuses will still show them as "different" in many instances but I can live with that).
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@mikedavis2 Reverting to the Old Source Linker
I realize that this is not in the spirit of progress, but after a lot of failed attempts to work out why I couldn't see the 'back to old source linker' option, I gave up and tried a different approach. I have been able to revert to the old source linker using Firefox ESR on a Raspberry Pi running Linux. It took many attempts with various versions of OS and browser before I eventually found a combination that would actually open FamilySearch pages successfully. With the combination described, I found a linked record and opened the linker. The revert option was present, so I clicked it, and now the opt-in semaphore is switched off. I did not investigate the browser or OS identity as seen by the server, because I'd grown weary of the issue and was simply relieved to be back to where I wanted to be.
If anybody else needs to try this, be aware that most 'famous' browsers will not work, they are too greedy for resources and the system will stall when Familysearch is opened. You will need at least a Raspberry Pi 3 with "More RAM" or better still an RPi 4 or later, and don't open more than two tabs. The same might be true for other micro-sized hobby computers, but I don't have any so I can't verify this.
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I'll just carry on with some other feedback.
- I remarked on how "Marital Status" is not useful on a census without an indication of the date when it was noted. I've spotted this on marriage records as well - it would be "single", "divorced" or "widowed" on the record but of course is "married" the following day. Again, misleading to have such a fact without the associated date.
- As I think others have noted, the new linker does not appear to be actually linking the sources to the facts it's creating. Isn't that the whole point of "Source Linker"?
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Mod note - more Source Linker feedback has been merged here.
Please see the comment by the Community Manager about popup or ad blockers keeping the tab from working properly.
If you do not have an ad blocker and the feedback tab still provides an error, please post the url where you get the error and details about what you were doing when you get the error, including screenshots if possible.
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As I think others have noted, the new linker does not appear to be actually linking the sources to the facts it's creating. Isn't that the whole point of "Source Linker"?
Just to keep the terminology clear and accurate:
The source linker has two functions:
1) Attaching sources to a Family Tree profile. This is the main role of the source linker and is working just fine.
2) Tagging sources to a specific data block on that Family Tree profile. Tagging was first introduced for just data blocks under Vital information. That has worked well in the source linker and still does.
When the Person pages were updated early last year, tagging for data blocks under Other Information was added. At that point the source linker did not have the ability to tag Other Information data blocks. There has not been any change with the new source linker and that ability for additional tagging has not been added yet. There were posts last year from FamilySearch personnel about the technical reasons for the lack of expanded tagging ability and apparently those complications have not been solved yet.
Both attaching and tagging could be referred to as "linking" so it is probably best to avoid that ambiguous term.
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I am loving the new Source Linker! So many improvements that I can't list them all. Being able to edit the items on the right is a huge plus. Two small comments - on things being marked as 'different' on the right side. Please don't mark them as different when one name is in all caps and the other name isn't. Also please don't mark them as different when a month is abreviated vs. not abbreviated - i.e. APR vs. April. I may come up with other things later, but right now I'm just enjoying it. I've connected almost a thousand sources this month alone so I am getting plenty of practice with it.
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@mikedavis2 just to add (and aid) with the problems - I've already mentions that 'Reasons' data is NOT carried across to the Persons Record (or their Events entries) NOR is the working source TAGGED. I discovered by clicking the 'Detach' from source button that it shows these aforementioned elements are indeed blank:-
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