Source Attachment Abuse?

Áine Ní Donnghaile

How can a contributor attach the SAME wrong source to a single profile 13 times in one evening? And if that contributor has created that mess on this one profile I'm following, how many other profiles have been similarly abused?

Changelog: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/changelog/GZDM-WKJ

I already deleted this source once before because a different contributor made a similar-name error. But 13 times in one evening?

Edit to add: the record in question is a NUMIDENT record naming both parents. That means 13 x 3 to repair on this one record.

Thank you.

ScottSeegmiller

@Áine Ní Donnghaile Thank you for bring this up in the Community. We should all be more careful when using Source Linker.

1. Always look at the image before you attach the indexed record.

2. Do not ignore records that are already attached. Dig in and see if there is a duplicate.

3. Verify the names, dates, places, and relatives carefully. There is no harm in leaving it unattached, or better, marking it as Not a Match if all information creates doubt.

4. When you get back a more than 4 generations, many names are the same. When it doubt, leave it out. Let someone with more experience, more time, more focus figure it out.

It is very difficult to fix people who have been merged incorrectly and to correct sources that have been attached to the wrong person.

Source Linker is a tool, but do not let it replace diligence and discernment when looking at records.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

@ScottSeegmiller BUT it should not be possible to link the SAME record THIRTEEN times. Doesn't matter if it is the wrong record or the correct record; 13 times should not be possible.

While I agree we should use due care, the source linker should not permit THIRTEEN attachments of the same record.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

The thirteen attachments, if they were deliberate, are highly unlikely to have involved Source Linker, except possibly for the first one; I cannot find a way to get it to do that.

I also cannot figure out how to get my Source Box to do more than one additional attachment; if I try to attach a source that's already attached to that profile, it tells me so.

Ditto for the image-based attachments.

I think it either wasn't deliberate (i.e., there was some sort of glitch), or it's somewhere on mobile.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

We were told that the glitch that allowed multiple attachments from the App was fixed.

I've spent most of the day repairing the 3 profiles. The contributor created multiple custom events, not just attaching the record. And now I'm working on the family to which that record belongs hoping to prevent a repeat. My worry is how many other profiles have been corrupted in the same manner.

ScottSeegmiller

@Áine Ní Donnghaile I will ask the engineers to review the ability to attach the same record more than once from the FamilySearch App. Thank your for your corrections and for calling this out.

Sam Sulser

@Áine Ní Donnghaile this is definitely a bug. They are testing some things right now to see if they fixed it.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

Thanks @Sam Sulser

I've asked several times but have not received a reply. Were multiple profiles affected by the bug? I happened to see the one (or the 13) because that's close family that I follow.

Sam Sulser

Yes, but I'm not sure how many. They think they have it fixed. Testing so far has been positive but they are still doing some testing. Sadly, I would expect that you could run into others.

Sam 😕

Caleb L

Let us know if you have seen any additional instances of this since the end of July.