ID Numbers needed in the watch list!

Question

I am struggling with the genealogy of the Kraus family in Bohemia. Like many families, they were not very inventive in the matter of first names. I now have about FORTY instances of Johann Kraus, and am going round in circles trying to sort them out.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS: I/we (I`m surely not alone with this problem?) desperately need the ID numbers to be displayed in the watch list.

Comments

Patrick, on my watchlist there is a column Status/ID, with an M as status for the profiles I am manager of, then the WikiTree ID of the profile, then a scissors icon to copy the ID. Maybe some of this is coming from the WikiTree Browser extension. But don't you at least see the ID in that column?

What I see does not accord with the documentation. The Surname mentioned there is missing.

Edited to add: Well, I suppose it does show the LNAB as part of the WikiTree ID...

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Even if you are not using the WBE, the Watchlist has four columns: Name, Birth, Status/ID, and Edit Date,

Answer 1

If you hover over one of those Johann Kraus, his ID will appear in the bottom left of your browser's taskbar.

Answer 2

Thanks to all for the answers! Maybe I have a cheapo setup? The hovering method works only for the "unconnected people" list. There is no trace of a column Status/ID.

And then there is also the matter of the ancestry tree diagrams (which has been the subject of several questions over the years). Many links in the style "Adam, son of Eva, married Eva, daughter of Adam". Or, for the Laidlaws, "William son of William son of William..." 

In both situations, the lack of clarity arises mainly from the irritating habit of families giving their children only one first name, and that from a very limited list. For the female members, the number of Kraus Annas is also astonishing.

Since the name should ideally - for our purposes - provide an unambiguous identification, I suggest that a workaround - so long as the trees do not show the ID - is to add the ID as a "second name". In my case, this would simply mean instead of 40 x Johann Kraus ambiguously cluttering up the picture, they would be entered as Johann 2010 Kraus, Johann 2035 Kraus etc.

Maybe it's not pretty, but it would considerably reduce the ambiguity, and thus some of the errors that take hours to correct.

Any thoughts?

Comments

Personal numbering or coding systems are not allowed by WT. "Sometimes genealogists have their own coding systems for identifying or distinguishing individuals. These may be beneficial in personal research but on a shared website where we collaborate on the same ancestor profiles we should only use fields for their intended purposes."
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Name_Fields#Personal_coding_systems

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Patrick, sorry but I'm having difficulty with the idea that your watchlist is different! Are we talking about the same thing? The watchlist I am referring to is available through the Watchlist item in the My WikiTree menu.

Here is what the headings of the table look like for me. Note Status/ID. What are you seeing?

Hovering doesn't work in general on tablets or phones, by the way.

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Ahah! Got it Jim! Definitely a "recoverable user error" on my part. We were indeed not talking about the same thing.

For months I have been looking at the list that appears at the top, in the "Name on Watchlist" box. I totally overlooked the existence of the option "Watchlist" in the drop-down menu!

In other words, I've been doing it the hard way.

One lives and learns - if one lives long enough!

Many, many thanks for the clarification!

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Absolutely clear Ros!

OK, I understand that the idea was not so good. I was never intending to mess up the system, which is why I suggested the method here, instead of just jumping in and applying it. But we are still left with the problem that the IDs don't appear in the tree diagram - or have I missed something?

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You're welcome, Patrick! I'm glad the first thing is sorted out.

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Ok, which tree diagram? Is it what you get from the Descendants/Ancestors buttons on a profile? Or one of the Tree Apps?