Must we add everything Source Linker suggests to us?
I would say most definitely no.
Take for example the following. There is no benefit to know when a form was filled out, nor a location so bland.
Just because Source Linker allows, nay even suggests that we add the information to the person's other information - just resist; and click attach without 'adding' the detail.
Answers
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@Jack Hern - I totally agree that just because you can, doesn't mean that you should. The NumIdent stuff tends to be particularly problematic in my experience but there are other redundancies on things as simple as censuses. IIRC, I've had Marital Status suggested many times when the Status is obvious from stuff already on the profile. For instance, someone with a spouse in a relationship with them might have a Marital Status of "Married" (or whatever) suggested, even though the Relationship makes that obvious.
Having said that, a Status of Widowed if dated (which I don't think that it always is) isn't redundant if you don't have a death date for the spouse already on file
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While I find "Social Program Correspondence" a useless bit of fluff, I can't agree that the "Social Program Claim" information should be ignored.
US Social Security distinguishes between a Life Claim and a Death Claim. If you don't have death information for the profile, the Claim Date can be an extremely useful clue.
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I completely agree with the basic premise that there can be information in the source that for which there is no reason to add it to the profile. If needed at some point, it is still there in the source for evaluation.
However, I wouldn't have any complaint with it being added if the user who added it through the source linker would then go to the profile and make it useful instead of just ignoring the profile and going on to the next hint. This annoys me:
This I would be fine with:
Where I find this lack of cleaning up data one adds most troublesome is with birth records in which the mother's residence at the time of the birth is included as a single word. Frequently misspelled, mis-transcribed, not standardized, or standardized incorrectly:
These are both Skotteberg, Nordre Bjelland, Stord, Hordaland, Norway. Not only is the place name not corrected on the mother, users who leave the her profile in this state also never add this birth place to the child's profile who was born there.
I waffle between being happy that the user took care of correctly attaching the source and being annoyed that the user left the profile in this state so that someone else has to go back to the list of sources to figure out which birthplace goes to which child, add it to the child's profile, and figure out what the place name actually is.
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Yes! This! Here we have in the Other Information box a simple entry Marital Status: Single. Duh, aren't we all born single? Then married a couple times, gotta have that. Never mind there is a spot to enter a spouse alredy in the Family Members box; and even a space there to input the Date & Location Wheeee! Then entering Widowed or Widower, again not neccessary in my mind a genealogical benefit. Of course 98% of the time one spouse will pass before another. The other concern with widowed is that it was often used as a euphemism for Divorced when divorce wasn't as normalized as it is today - so it is not as good of an indicator that the spouse is deceased as one would like to think.
"But, but… I want to show my person was in a relationship, I just don't have the spouse name yet…" Yes, I understand your desire; however, the nature of life is the vast majority of humanity will have couples pairing off at some point. It is ok to leave it blank until you do identify said spouse. I.E. no need to put "Mrs. Smith" as a placeholder.1 -
Just my opinion —-In fact, placeholders can create lots of confusion and many wild goose chases not to mention eliminating all those duplicates —- Plus there are clear instructions: ADD SPOUSE or ADD CHILD make placeholders totally unnecessary — research helps always suggests the possible existence of a spouse or a child AND when we use Notes on the person page to indicate special circumstances, we save everyone a lot of chasing details.
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Social Program Claim should be added I think. Its helpful as it relates to the retirement or death time for the individual. The other one is fluff though that i don't ever add as it doesn't really help.
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I disagree with @Jack Hern and agree with @Áine.ní.Donnghaile and @jaredallenjohnson1:
"Social Program Claim Date" is needed for the reasons stated above.
Also "Social Application Date" is needed because it indicates the person was alive on that date and living in the USA. Both of those facts have been handy when a person's death date was unknown or for tracking people who made repeated trips back to their birth country. I've seen several instances where the Application was the last known record for a person.2
