FamilySearch links expiring?

Question

I've recently been tidying up some profiles I created a few years ago and have hit a worrying problem. Several familysearch links to census records no longer work. When clicking them you get a page with the message "This Record has been removed. Unfortunately the record that you requested is no longer available. If you arrived here from a bookmark, please delete your bookmark."

Of course the record hasn't been removed but now has a different short URL encoding. The whole point about providing these encoded URLs is to avoid hard-coded links but if they're going to expire after a few years then they are useless.

Here's an example, my profile citation copied from familysearch, was:

"England and Wales Census, 1881," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKXR-MBCQ : accessed 31 January 2016), John Barron, Coundon, Durham, England; from "1881 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing p. 66, Piece/Folio 4920/86, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey; FHL microfilm 101,775,364

Clicking the embedded link now doesn't work. The new citation is:

"England and Wales Census, 1881," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q271-9D65 : 12 December 2017), John Barron, Coundon, Durham, England; from "1881 England, Scotland and Wales Census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing p. 66, Piece/Folio 4920/86, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey; FHL microfilm 101,775,364.

Has anyone else encountered anything like this?

Comments

There is some major maintenance going on at FamilySearch. I heard of this a couple of weeks ago, or so, in a message that said it could last up to 90 days.

Sometimes records get reposted, and thus all the links change. This happened to some Mexican Church records I was working with a few years back.

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Maybe we should all complain to FamilySearch, stating their citations are useless if they change them whenever they wish.

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I've gotten the message that certain sources have been retired and then a link to the new source. Usually, it is something like a birth database that changed from something like, Select Births, 1872-1925 to Select Births, 1872-1955.

What you are saying seems to be a bit different.

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I've had a number of FS citations rendered useless link-wise.  It makes me less happy to use them.

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Even worse, the HTTP status code on Matthew's example

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKXR-MBCQ

is 200 "OK", instead of 404 "Not Found". This probably means that Aleš's weekly scan will not pick it up, so people will not be warned with a suggestion.

Answer 1

It may be maintenance, but FamilySearch also depends on the right to present the image. They sign contracts with the copyright owner to be able to present the image for a determined time, and when that time expires, either there is an extention of the contract or the picture has to be removed. I once heard Thomas MacEntee talk about it in a lecture.

Comments

This isn't just about images, but about the links in FS-generated citations being removed/changed/going bye-bye.

Answer 2

I appreciate what FS has done so much! Their searchable data has had a huge positive impact on my genealogical efforts. BUT, I wish they would maintain consistency. For me, it is 'unpleasant' anchoring my work to a source that is so in flux. 

For my Italian branches, citations USED to look like this:

"Italia Nati e Battesimi, 1806-1900," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XKQM-LNB : 10 February 2018), Giuseppe Antonio Simone in entry for Lodovico Luigi, 05 Jan 1834; citing , reference 2:1DGHRR3; FHL microfilm 1,178,112.

Then they disappeared completely to an error notice.

Now they have 're-linked' and the 'new' citations look like this:

"Italia Nati e Battesimi, 1806-1900", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XKQM-LNB : 6 February 2020), Giuseppe Antonio Simone in entry for Lodovico Luigi Simone, 1834.

NOTICE that the FHL film # is missing--That is what you'd really like to have when you go to a Family History Center to dig deeper......

I'm also NOT a fan of the 'new & improved' look at FS.....but I digress.......

Answer 3

Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 1998 wrote a quite definitive piece about this issue, always good to revisit, or discover in case you never stumbled upon it.

Cool URIs don't change