Is The Quality Score of Zaccheus Test 1826-1913 (PID 9J4C-D53) Too High?
The main purpose of the quality assessment tool seems to be flagging missing sources and data and conflicting factual claims.
The Quality Score of Zaccheus Test 1826-1913 (PID 9J4C-D53) is listed as "high".
My thought is that this score is high only because you're leaving out a key assessment criterion: the 5th requirement of the Genealogical Proof Standard: a clear and concise presentation of the conclusions derived from skillful collection and examination of the best available evidence.
Zaccheus Test is shown as having 50 sources.
Consider an analogy. Detectives sometimes deal with the clutter of too much irrelevant data. DAs must be good editors -- simplifying and presenting the key evidence clearly to the jury to get at (hopefully) the truth and get a conviction.
Fifty sources should raise a red flag. We want the best evidence not the most evidence.
No one needs more than 1 tagged birth certificate, document or record, or more than 1 tagged marriage record (per marriage) or more than 1 tagged death record. The marriage records of the children belong in their profiles not with the profiles of the parents.
Put the clutter in a pdf in the memories tab.
For Zaccheus Test there are 19 tagged sources for date of birth -- only the Quaker record might be considered an original source. None of the census records actually provide a date of birth.
48 tagged sources for the his name? Absurd. Again, reference to the Quaker family register is sufficient.
A mechanism is needed to weed out tagged sources that don't add any value to original source evidence --those that don't increase the probability of our claims are true.
Apparently a query is generated when a woman gives birth beyond the age of 55 or thereabouts. Similarly, a query should be generated when someone tries to add a 3rd or 4th source tag to any fact on the profile page.
- Is this source an original source?
- Is this source independent of the other sources?
If not sure that the answer is a definite 'yes' to at least one of the questions please consider not adding it unless you think it means that a neutral objective independent observer would not believe the fact without this new piece of evidence.
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I have immense sympathy with the idea of a free-standing report containing only high quality sources and in a concise manner. I am not certain, however, that such an approach sits easily within the current technical constraints of FS FamilyTree.
There are (and excuse me if this is stating the obvious) two distinct stages in the current handling of historical source records in FS FT. Stage 1 is to attach the source record to (each of) the relevant profiles. Stage 2 is to create a tag to link the "facts" to the source records which can be done in either direction or only from the "fact" in question. Many of the tags are already in the historical source records and, when the source is attached to the profile, the relevant tags are automatically applied to the relevant facts to link those facts to the sources.
As an example, a baptism record that I just worked through, came ready tagged for 2 or 3 items for each of the parents and the child. When I linked / attached it to one of the profiles, it was linked / attached to all three, and the relevant facts were auto-tagged to the baptism record. In particular, the names of the two parents each acquired another tagged source.
I am in total sympathy with anyone who says that my GG-uncle does not need 6 tagged sources against his name. Quite apart from anything, after the first 1 or 2, those tagged sources are not evidence for his name - his name has been used to identify the persons on the source record, i.e. the flow of deductive logic goes in the opposite direction.
However, (a) this is the software reality that we live in and fixing it - if it can be fixed - goes way beyond this Quality Score software, and (b) I expect my references to "the flow of deductive logic goes in the opposite direction" may go over the heads of many. Possibly including me tomorrow.
"Fifty sources should raise a red flag. We want the best evidence not the most evidence"
If it were an independent report, yes, absolutely. But in FS FT we must attach all historical source records to the profiles for the people named in the sources. Otherwise, the prompts to attach remain "live" and someone will follow the prompt in some fashion, perhaps creating new (duplicate) profiles.
"No one needs more than 1 tagged birth certificate …"
To do that in FS FT as it stands would need the researcher to untag things like censuses from the birth events because there's a high-quality birth certificate attached to the profile and tagged to the birth, etc. I suggest that is incredibly fraught for the average researcher who is likely to untag far more than is sensible.
"Is this source an original source?
"Is this source independent of the other sources?
Excellent questions for an independent report - but in FS FT, all those sources must be attached to the profile. If they contain automatic tags, the items will be auto-tagged. Removing the unnecessary tags (and they are unnecessary logically) is, as I say, fraught with peril if too many are removed.
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It would be good to understand from the FS data quality team whether their strategy will eventually mandate changes to the way the UI works, in particular the source linker, as @Adrian Bruce1 points out.
I'd like to be able to indicate that a new source does belong to this profile specifically, but is not required to verify any conclusion on the profile (making it more like an extra memory than a DQS-friendly source).
On a separate though related point, the main problem I encounter on mega-sourced profiles is that a vast percentage of the sources to be waded through relate to the person's children. Surely they should sit on the parent/child relationship, not on the parent profile? But if you put a source on a relationship, the current UI makes it very difficult for anyone else to spot. (And, the way a family hangs together on a census entry is really clear when you look at the record, but not at all clear on the profiles and relationships that it helps to verify.)
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See also
which was closed without being taken further but which is relevant here I think.
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Thank you all for such thorough, thoughtful and carefully constructed replies. This is more complicated than I had imagined.
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@MandyShaw1 suggested:
" … I'd like to be able to indicate that a new source does belong to this profile specifically, but is not required to verify any conclusion on the profile …
That's an interesting point. See also the frequent complaint in here that someone has several sources that are duplicates and can't we get rid of the dupes? Well, of course, the duplicate sources usually aren't dupes in a physical sense because they have different URLs - but in a logical sense, they are dupes - multiple indexings of the same parish register, perhaps, or Bishop's Transcripts compared to the original Parish Registers. (BTs are normally the same as the PR - they are transcripts, after all - but occasionally they aren't the same.) But if the sources that hold the same information can be left attached to the profile or whatever, just put onto a different tab (bonus material?), that might clean things up.
Also…
"… Surely they should sit on the parent/child relationship, not on the parent profile? But if you put a source on a relationship, the current UI makes it very difficult for anyone else to spot. … "
Excellent point - but I'm asking myself if I've ever attached a source to a parent/child relationship? If not, why not? I'm perfectly capable of understanding that the parent/child relationship is an "entity" in its own right and can therefore have "things" attached to it. I suspect that the answer is, as you say, the current User Interface obscures such attachments.
Similar things have been said about attaching sources to couple relationships - yes, we should, but they end up hidden, so it's just easier to attach them to the two members of the couple relationship. Easier to do the attachment work, with results that are easier to see.
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In my perfect world we would probably have a profile focused view, a relationship focused view, and a source focused view ...
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Regarding "No one needs more than 1 tagged birth certificate, document or record, or more than 1 tagged marriage record (per marriage) or more than 1 tagged death record," I view the source page as functioning like an old library card catalog. If you looked up a subject such as basket weaving, you would find every book having to do with basketweaving. Not just the ones the librarian happened to like and not just the one that was the most useful.
Likewise, as the sourcing system in Family Tree currently functions, I view it as a master index to the historical records. Once all the records in the historical databases are properly attached to the correct people in Family Tree, then no one will have to deal with the sometimes flaky records search routine. Instead, find a person's profile in Family Tree, go to the source page, and then go to the historical records for that person from there.
Regarding tagging, I agree there is too much tagging going on. When I attach a source in the source linker, I generally uncheck at least half of the automatic tag so that the source is not tagged to those suggested items.
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Thank you everyone for your input. Great discussion here. This was read through yesterday by an engineer. And a really good discussion evolved. And now there are more insightful comments. Thanks again :)
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@Gordon Collett said:
I agree there is too much tagging going on. When I attach a source in the source linker, I generally uncheck at least half of the automatic tag so that the source is not tagged to those suggested items.
Oh - interesting - not sure I ever thought of intervening at that stage - or even after - to remove "pointless" (redundant? surplus?) taggings.
(Just as an aside or two, I do remove Alternate Names that are identical to the name in the Vitals - I recognise that they may not have started that way, so that's not an automatic criticism of the person who entered the Alternate Name.
Yes, and I also remove Birth Registration events - unless it's an interesting Delayed Registration - and pointless statements like Custom Event - Marital Status = Married when there's already a clear marriage date.
However - these are just my preferences, stated here for interest only, and I must emphasise I'm not suggesting such candidates for removal should be highlighted in the Quality Score.)
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