Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Pet Peeve1

You know the excitement you feel when you come upon a new record and look right away at how many sources are attached to your ancestor and see a large number like 18 or maybe 24.  When I come upon those ancestors I get excited to see what is attached and how much I can learn about this ancestor, given the number of sources that are attached to them.

As I dig deeper into the sources I come to find out that out of, say 20 sources, 17 or 18 of them don't even belong to that particular ancestor but belongs to children, spouse, or even parents.  This really frustrates me and is a HUGE pet peeve.  When I go to a particular ancestors' record I go there to get information on THAT ancestor.  Not his/her children, not the spouse, parents or anyone else.  

When I am on "Jane's" record, I want to learn as much as I can about Jane.  Yes, you want to learn how many children she had, but those children are listed on her record under details, so you know the children names, etc.  But on Jane's record I don't need or want to know the birth, death, marriage dates of the children in the source materials.    

I'm not quite sure why people attach records to people that aren't theirs.  I kinda get it, they are mentioned in the record, but it's not THEIR birth record.  So, when I come upon this scenario, I always end up detaching the records notating an explanation that this is not their record and can be found on the child listed in the source record.  Before I detach I always make sure the source is located with the correct individual.   I don't want to lose the source record unless it is listed somewhere.  

I love it when I can find a lot of different types of sources on an Ancestor.  It's exciting to learn more about them, but the source material attached to a person has to be their sources.  Any other records attached is just a nuisance.

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