Improvement idea: Make sources easily shareable between profiles of family members.

Question

Many source citations (such as those for a marriage or a census) are relevant to more than one member of a family. Why not make the sources from a person's family members' profiles available on their edit page?  We could click a button to paste the source citation from one profile into the biography or sources section of another, saving several copy-and-paste steps.  I've added this feature to my browser extension, and some people have told me that it's really useful.  Why not build this into the site?

Comments

I use the FamilySearch citations and just copy and paste. Very easy.

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Just for what it's worth, when a record on Family Search, or sometimes Ancestry, names multiple family members, the actual source citation is often slightly different for each person named.  In FS, for example, you'll get a few different letters or numbers in the source URL, and in the copy and paste citation the specific name will be different.  In a census record, head of household John Doe will be named in his citation, but Mary Doe in household of John Doe will be named in hers.  Either URL will take you to the correct record, however, so I don't know whether it will ever really matter if you use the citation for a different family member on somebody's profile.  I suspect technical purists would cringe at this practice, however.

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Rosemary, copy and paste isn't hard.  But the extension is easier.  I think anything that makes it easier to add sources to WT is going to result in people adding more sources, and isn't that what we all want?

Dennis, you're right, of course, that a source (I'm thinking of Ancestry, which I use most) will be stated a little differently for various household members and each spouse in a family.  But I've been using Ian's extension recently and I think any intelligent reader can understand how the source relates to each profile it is attached to.  I hope I won't upset the purists, and only hope they find more alarming things to focus on. 

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Julie,

I'm usually updating the FamilySearch Family Tree at the same time so I have the sources quickly available.

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This is such a common feature. I think it is on every desktop program I have ever used.

WikiTree keeps a record of a lot of user-specific data. This seems to be a natural.

Answer 1

You could create a space page for shared sources if you would like, but as others have said, I tend to agree that a simple copy and paste does the job. In fact, what I usually do, is add a bunch of sources to a profile, such as parents and children of which ever profile is in question, then copy the sources when creating the parents and children, and just paste the sources into the new profile, while I am creating it. As someone else said, I think it is fairly rare to have many sources relevant to multiple people, unless it is marriages, or census results, or passenger lists. I'm not sure how your desktop extention makes it easier, but could you elaborate.

Comments

But Ben, censuses are among our most common sources (for more recent time periods).  I have been using Ian's extension to copy census reports from one profile to another, and it is definitely easier and less tedious (as I mentioned above).

Other times I might want to copy a source to many profiles include certain books I've used as sources.  And there is a way now, using the extension, to copy a source from a profile other than a close (attached) family member, by entering the WT ID into the "other" box.

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I usually have BDM sources, or Newspaper articles, because they are readily available for free in Australia.

I was just looking at a profile, to see how something could be possible.

The problem I see, is one, you could create a system where each source is given a location, like Photos, but this would create a massively extra complicated layer for Wikitree, and for many sources, it would thoroughly not be worth it, such as when I list for a source, that such-and-such a relative personally relayed that information to me from their recollections.

However, what if a system was created, similar to where there are links provided next to the name at the top of each profile. Perhaps a link placed at the end of every source, that can be clicked on, to open up a box, that enables you to select profiles to copy that source to, similar to selecting extra profiles for a photo. Also a spot to manually add SURNAME-ID. Hopefully that wouldn't create a burdensome system, requiring each individual source to need a separate identifiable location.

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I guess you're replying to me, Ben, but I'm afraid your comments are way over my head.  I imagine that when Ian comes along again he can give you an intelligent answer.

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Sorry. Yes Julie. I guess I tend to use Wikitree in a way that I have gotten it to work for myself. Others certainly use it in different ways. We tend to make it work for ourselves.

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Placing sources on a FSP is not good practice because the page can be merged away. There are a lot of profiles created for relatives mentioned in a record referring to a close relative, so placing the relative's source on the page whilst editing, as Ian's extension does, places it in front of the user and hopefully prompts them to add it to the profile.

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Hi Ben, I'm sorry for not making the link to my browser extension more obvious in the question. I think the free space page explains it well enough (with images). 

You're right - a simple copy-and-paste does it. But the point here is to make life a little easier.  We can make the process much more simple.  We can get the sources from a family member's profile without opening another browser tab/window.  They can be right there on the same page ready to put into the right place without even copying and pasting - just a click will do it.  

From the Edit page, the difference is something like this:

Now 

1. Scroll up to the family member's name on the edit page.

2. Open a browser window/tab.

3. Got to the Edit tab.

4. Scroll down to the biography and find the citation.

5. Select and copy the citation.

6. Go back to the first tab/window and paste the citation.

(7. If it's an inline citation, click the 'C' button or type ref tags)

The future / with my extension

1. Choose a family member from a drop-down list.

2. Find the citation in the list on the right.

3. Click a button to add the citation either inline (with ref tags) or in the Sources section (preceded by a *).

Just for example - and this is what prompted me to write this code - someone asked me if we could have the citation for a marriage ready to paste into the sources section when we add a spouse.  Yes, we can do that.  When you create a new profile, the source citations from the first person are ready to add to the profile of the second person (marriage, census, or whatever), with just one click - no copying and pasting, just a click. 

About your idea for doing this the other way around - having a button next to the source... Where would that be? On the profile page?  It's an interesting idea, but, I imagine, much more complicated in terms of the procedure and the code. I could be wrong, I'm just trying to imagine how that would work.  Would they be added to the Sources section of other profiles without even opening a tab?  I guess this is kind of what happens with Family Search, isn't it?  I could definitely support that one. I'm pretty sure this would be possible, too, in most cases (though I couldn't do it with Javascript). 

You mentioned each source needing a separate location, maybe to build a database of sources, and I know I suggested that elsewhere, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.  For this feature, I'm just getting the inline citations from the biography text and then parsing the Sources section according to *s.  If people (incorrectly) haven't used an asterisk in their Sources section, my code won't work well, but when they do, it works fine (it may not be perfect, but it's fine). 

I hope that makes it a little clearer.

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You have so many well thought out ideas there Ian. Don't know what we don't have the button for auto generating the biography yet. We are in desperate need of it. In fact, they should see if we can get a auto gen biography button, then have a biography-a-thon.

As for copying sources, I can see the merit in having your drop down menus in the create profile box, but also perhaps as a copy button to the left of every citation under sources. You are correct that either situation may be difficult if people aren't using the inline citations properly, or not using the ' * ' properly.