FYI: Dutch provincial archive DrentsArchief converting search engine [closed]

Question

Edited to fix partially visible lines...

They say on the old homepage (alledrenten):

BINNENKORT STOPT DEZE WEBSITE

U wordt dan direct doorverwezen naar de nieuwe Genealogische zoekmachine van het Drents Archief, op drentsarchief.nl. De zoekmachine op alledrenten.nl is vanaf dat moment niet meer te gebruiken.

Heb ze per mail gevraagd of oude urls (bronvermeldingen) automatisch omgeleid gaan worden naar nieuwe.

---

SOON THIS WEBSITE WILL BE SHUT DOWN

You will then be directly referred to the
new genealogical search engine of the Drents
Archief, at drentsarchief.nl. The search
engine on alledrenten.nl can no longer be
used from that moment on.

Have asked them by email whether old urls
 (source references) will be automatically
 redirected to new ones.

Comments

Received answer from Drents Archief (see below), bad news: we will have to manually convert the URLs, no redirects offered.

Answer 1

Thanks, Jan, for posting this and checking with them about old urls possibly being redirected to new ones.

Comments

Bertram,

This is what I asked (translated from Dutch):

Citations are essential in genealogy. With the transition from your search engine "alledrenten" to the Drenthe archive, the question arises whether "old alledrenten" citations will be automatically redirected to
"new drentsarchief" ones.
The baptism of Arendt Sijlbinge may serve as an example:

•     http://alledrenten.nl/akte/arendt/126A6CAA-8BE9-46EE-8863-E3DB38E6A0CA
•     https://www.drentsarchief.nl/onderzoeken/genealogie/zoeken/deeds/126a6caa-8be9-46ee-8863-e3db38e6a0ca

Given the identical UUIDs (except for lower/uppercase), wouldn't it be possible to automatically convert the alledrenten url to the new drentsarchief url?
 

On the site WikiTree.com there are almost 5000 profiles citing a deed on alledrenten (press Get profiles to see the list).

It would be sad if we have to convert all urls manually!

---

The old and new Drenths Archief was and is linked to WieWasWie,  database owned by the CBG /Dutch Central Bureau for Genealogy). I checked my WieWasWie-links for Drenthe records; they work flawless with the new Drenths Archief.

---

That's the good news, Jan.

The worry is about the almost 5000 links to alledrenten.nl that are currently recorded in WikiTree. Would be nice if they continue working when alledrenten.nl is no longer in operation.

---

I am afraid the web links to sources will remain in future a weak chain in the Wikitree construction of profiles. Archives are living organizations and adapt to new situations and technologies..... Especially smaller regional provincial and town archives could easily be subject to changes in their work methods. For this reason I think that, if there is a choice, preference should be given to establish links to those databases which are part of bigger organizations, like in the Netherlands CBG/WieWasWie or for image-links the internationally operating FamilySearch. The bigger the database is, the more interest there will be to keep links stable.... Better is even to add, instead of or as a supplement, a jpg or png file of the document, what I did, as far as available, for all pre 1811 documents. I admit that the disadvantage from this is the heavy memory load for the server and the personal workload.....

---

I agree on all points, Jan. Nevertheless I observe that archives don't seem to realize (or care about) the impact of changing urls on users with trees citing their records. Fortunately there is a trend towards making their records available as open data, identified by UUIDS in permalinks.

---

Their answer in short:

In the past we have built our own search engine, with our own ideas,
our own image server and our own UUIDs.
Many archival institutions are using a third party in recent years
to assign unique UUIDs to digital records.
Unfortunately, we have not used this in the past.
During the transition to our new universal search engine we discovered
that our generated UUIDs are not all unique.
New UUIDs have been issued for this, which will not change in the future.

In your example, the UUID does match,
but there will be many UUIDs that are no longer correct.

In the URL structure of the old items, we linked the name to the UUID.
Due to our choice in the past to also link the name to the UUID,
we unfortunately cannot redirect the old links to the new one.


In short: I am afraid that you will have to convert all links
on your website manually. Should we switch to another search engine
in the future, we will not have that issue
(but that is of no use to you at the moment).

---

Yeah, that's not so good news.... The most elegant way to correct this would be to have a list sorted per profile manager from his own managed ID's, which have an "alledrenten.nl" link, and ask him/her by mail to correct and apply the new source link. However, in the cited 5000 profile list I did not find a way to sort. First since the page size does not work  over 200/page and second this list has no sorting facility.....

So, I suppose the only way is a common action, a kind of Flying Dutchman Clean-Drenthe Link Process.......

Jan

---

Won't they appear in the suggestions list of all the profile managers because of the not working link?

---

I think Eef's thought is probably the best one to catch all links to alledrenten.  For myself, I don't have anyone in Drenthe after about 1750.  But I have about 20 family lines that go back to Drenthe between 1650 and 1750 from various places in Overijssel, Groningen and Grafschaft Bentheim.  It would be hard to catch them all without some kind of a list.

---

I agree. The profiles with broken links will probably be listed in suggestions, but I think only those with the "404 Not found" error. Redirected pages could end in a cul-de-sac. Let's wait and see what happens when http://alledrenten.nl gets dumped...

Jan

---

@All

One can export the resultset by changing Format "HTML" to Excel, for instance. The spreadsheet can then be sorted on the column "All Managers". But you'll see that many profiles will be orphaned or have an inactive manager or are only managed by the project (WikiTree-14). And furthermore there are plenty profile managers that never look at or aware of suggestions.

---

@Jan Rusch

Sorting only works in WikiTree+ if you specify "Max Profiles" large enough to contain the complete resultset.

Fortunately you have manage only 4 profiles with "alledrenten.nl", like Jantje Harms Dekens (no suggestions) with birth record:

http://alledrenten.nl/akte/jantje-dekens/45015bc3-b0c4-4a1d-afe5-a8997b69db93

will be:

https://www.drentsarchief.nl/onderzoeken/genealogie/zoeken/deeds/b60ba7aa-4a59-44a4-ab19-78fde091f00c

---

Oeps Jan, was alleen op kolom manager gesorteerd, dus Jantje Dekens is niet managed door jou....

---

@Jan Terink

Inderdaad komt Jantje Harms Dekens niet in mijn lijst voor. Maar de 4 profielen klopte en die heb ik intussen gecorrigeerd. Er zouden er dus nog maar 4769 over moeten blijven....

De "Max Profiles" lijst is gelimiteerd tot 100. Reden: Server overbelasting.