Duplicate record hints
This morning I came across a duplicate record hint for one of my ancestors (G92C-9ZL). When investigating the two hints, it seems that one hint comes from a collection where one page of the actual book counts as one page in the record collection. As for the other hint, two pages of the book counts as one page in the collection.
I do not know if this occurs only for the Belgian record collections but it creates many duplicate hints. Can this issue in general be investigated?
Can I dismiss one hint as a duplicate? If yes, which one?
Many thanks in advance
Answers
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@Loïc Baert
Good morning. Many records have been indexed multiple times. If the two hints are accurate representations of your ancestor, then neither should be dismissed. Dismissing a hint informs the hinting algorithm that it has made an error. The algorithm "learns" from what we tell it.5 -
@Áine.ní.Donnghaile - re "Dismissing a hint informs the hinting algorithm that it has made an error". I agreed totally with you until I started thinking (bad move?) about dismissing a hint using the option "This source is a duplicate".
Does anyone know what "This source is a duplicate" actually means and when we should use it?
For instance, is it only intended to be used when the URL of the Historical Record is the same on both hints? That's a real, genuine 100% duplicate.
Or is it (also) intended to be used when the image source has been indexed two or more times resulting in the same original document having two or more Historical Records, each with their own URL?
Apologies if this is obvious to everyone else! 😕
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I think - but I don't have a source to cite - that "duplicate" is only meant to be used when the URL is the same.
Of course, the wording could be clearer, especially since "duplicate" is used on retired records, which, as we know, are often not the same record and certainly don't use the same URL.3 -
@Áine.ní.Donnghaile - hmm. Your thought matches my guess at what I think is most likely / most sensible / most useful. Whether any other user agrees, I don't know, and that's surely the issue 🤔
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Thank you for your kind answers. I will not dismiss those hints as it is not a problem with the index / hint.
The problem lies with the collections itself, see the records:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6J8G-HXS2?lang=en
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6N77-TFNM?lang=en
Why is there an overlap in the collections?
Many thanks in advance
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@Loïc Baert The first one is a more recent and improved digitization of the microfilm. This newer image groups were created from segments of the original. It can be found in Images, but not in the catalog:
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@SerraNola Does this happen regularly that microfilm is re-digitized? What are the main reasons? Is there a possibility to remove the index of the old digitization when this happens?
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@Loïc Baert asked "Is there a possibility to remove the index of the old digitization when this [redigitisation] happens?"
Unfortunately, that seems to cause further problems when the old index just happens to contain more information than the new. Yes, it happens... Sigh. One of many cases where life is a bit more complicated than we might like.
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