Uncertain status in parent's profile

Question

It bothers me that when I mark a parent as uncertain and then look at the parent's profile, the child is not listed as "uncertain".  Is there a reason Wikitree doesn't include this?  This "feature" tempts me to omit these connections and instead used piped links on each profile to allow navigation between them.

Comments

It also bothers me a little.

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Yes! How'd you do that?

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I edited the page code. Unfortunately, it is only temporary. But it is good for showing people what you mean.

Answer 1

As I understand it the certain / uncertain flags have to do with relationship calculations. This show if you do a relationship to....

The inclusion or exclusion of certain or uncertain makes absolutely no difference to the navigation between profiles in the upper area under children / parents / spouses.

If you really are not certain of the child's parentage it might be better to remove the putative parents and, as you say, navigate to them by links in the profile.

Comments

The stated purpose may be only for use in relationship calculations, but that's not the only effect.  When I see "uncertain" next to a parent on a profile, that causes an immediate impact on how I view the profile -- it limits my credulity.  Unfortunately, I'm not all that great at limiting that myself, so the simple visual flag "uncertain" does a great job of helping me with that. 

The quality of a relationship being uncertain is symmetric:  if a parent is uncertain as the parent of a child, then that child is uncertain as the child of the same parent.  The "uncertain" flag should then always be added also next to the child, again to aid in limiting credulity.  I see no reason not to, but maybe someone else does?

I realize that the flag doesn't affect navigation.  My point was just that it bothers me so much to see a child just listed there, with all the other children and other certain information, when the child is actually quite uncertain, that I am tempted just to break the link and set up alternative navigation. But I'd prefer not to -- for various reasons, like relationship finding, ongoing research, etc., I'd like to keep the link and just mark it as uncertain.  

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Understand what you are saying. What you need is something along the lines of the DateGuess template, maybe {{Uncertain|Parents}} or {{Uncertain|Mother}} etc which puts up the grey box at the head of the profile. That way everyone knows there is a potential problem but navigation is not affected.

I don't know if such a template exists but perhaps the PTB could create one.

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There is one:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Template:Uncertain_Family

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Just a minor point re "The "uncertain" flag should then always be added also next to the child"

Not by any means does everyone set those flags. There would be a plethora of children marked as uncertain if this were to be adopted.

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@David:  I shouldn't have written "flag".  I just meant that when the flag is set as uncertain, so on the child's profile, next to the parent's name, there is written the indicator "uncertain", the same indicator should always appear next to the child's name when viewing that parent's profile.  That was the point of my initial post -- I can see no logical reason to omit this.

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Concerning the "Uncertain Family" template, the examples I have in mind have only one uncertain relationship, which that page explicitly says is not to be used with Uncertain Family.  I think the visual indicator by the persons name is fine -- I don't need a large box at the head of the profile, and that would be less specific about which relationship is the uncertain one.  I just want an indicator on both profiles of the people in the relationship -- right now, it only appears in the child's, and not the parent's.

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@Barry: I just meant that when the flag is set as uncertain, so on the child's profile, next to the parent's name

I think I was misunderstanding. You are referring to edit mode and not to the the Public/Private profile display?

Yes I could go along with that as a useful prompt

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An example:  Jackson-17939. Next to father William, on the public or private profile, it says uncertain.  Then click through to William's profile.  James is listed as a child like any other -- no indication he's less certain. It would be better if it said "uncertain" next to him.

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@Barry

Something like this, right?

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Yes I see where you are coming from and also had to check myself re uncertain which is not set automatically and thus would not result in thousands of children marked as uncertain SO...........

On reflection a thoroughly good idea and one I hope the PTB take up.