Ensuring records are only used for one person

Question

I have no idea how big a problem this is, but it has always struck me that whilst we attempt to refer our profiles back to sources, there is no reverse linkage, which could lead to the same record being used unknowingly for more than one person. It's also been my practive over the years, and a great help in sporting out who is who, especially with common names, to extract all the names for a given surname into a database for a parish and mark them off when I've identified them. Identification by elimnination can work very well.

I've been musing that if we want a comprehensive single tree, we not only need to make sure profiles are properly referenced, but also that records are somehow marked as identified. That prevents duplicates, but also identifies unused ones and unrecorded people.

To do this properly would take a lot of effort unfortunately, but I've done a quick proof nof concept using a single page of baptisms which contains a couple of people and their parents I know have profiles. See https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Register_of_Baptisms_-_Huish_Episcopi%2C_Somerset_-_1813-1855_-_D-P-hep-2-1-3

My musing for Easter.

Comments

If the same Find a Grave memorial is used for more than one person, that does trigger a database suggestion (DBE 585). I think that's technically possible and feasible because of the FindAGrave template, which allows one to indicate that the person whose profile it's on is NOT the person the memorial is for - {{FindAGrave|xxxxx|sameas=no}} - although I think that you don't necessarily need the template for the suggestion to be triggered. 

Answer 1

I believe that this will be impossible to implement because I use several records that have multiple people in the record, census records, marriage certificate, birth certificate to name a few.

Comments

I misohrased the original slightly. I don't literally mean one person per record, but one person per name in a record. For a will, for example, one person will often be named several times, but each instance of the name relates to just one person.

Answer 2

Nicolas: I am impressed by how thorough you are in your record keeping. WikiTree is so lucky to have your expertise and attention to detail.

There would be one exception to what you are saying. When I find a marriage record, I post it on the WikiTree profiles of both spouses.

Answer 3

In addition, records are recorded differently in the system. Only if the record had a unique bar code would it be near possible. Then when a discrepancy is detected, how would you decide who is correct. Most old records don't have enough information on them to determine 100% accuracy. Genealogy is "best guess" most of the time.

Comments

Yes, good point. I suppose you would need a way of recording who the options are when it's ambiguous.