collecting actual sources & then backing up our entire Tree

Question

I just received a newsletter from Fam. Search about sources and the eventual deletion of your sources. It said that Ancestry & all major companies have contracts with Historical Societies & all sorts of data banks. But these companies have to renew those contracts periodically. At some point, one or more of these data banks will for some reason not renew their license, therefore, losing all connections to your sources. It recommends having the original source in your possession if possible.
Does anyone have any ideas concerning this subject?
Thanks, Hal

Answer 1

Broken links are inevitable, because all webmasters will have to update their systems over time (move to new hosting, change software, etc.). I would love to have copies of all the sources and attach them to the profile, but almost all are copyrighted work products. They don't copyright the record, but their work that allowed you to find and load the images. So they can control what you do with the image. Downloading copies for yourself is okay, except you are still faced with the same delimit. You can't share it or post it, because it is copyrighted on their work product.

I think people forget the real purpose of sources. They are there to tell everyone where you got the information. Not all sources come with a link. For example, a family story passed down by a family member. You can use this as a source (first hand or second hand information) and eventually the person will no longer be around to talk to directly.  This does not make the source useless, it makes it more important. For future generations to see the source for themselves, they know where to obtain it, if it is archived somewhere, and properly sourced. But for most people visiting Wikitree, Wikipedia, etc., they will never look at the source.

All is not lost though, think about all the hard work you did just searching census records for your relative. A properly sourced document will tell future generations exactly where it is (on what microfilm, etc.). So it will be much easier to update the broken link, if necessary.

Comments

Jimmy, I agree the source is where you found the information and if not found online doesn't mean it is not a valid source.

Though as has been discussed many times, personal knowledge of events that happened before the PM was born are not sources.

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You can't be the source of someone else's experience, but you can be a second-hand source. My father (name) told me this story about his father. etc. It still stands true that a source is where you got it from. If you never met a person, you didn't get it from them. Maybe it was a second-hand story related to you, but in that case you should give the source credit to the person relaying the information. There is nothing wrong with stories passed down through generations. Oral history may be wrong, but it usually has elements of truth. This gives us detail to investigate and find the whole story.

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You're right I have a family story that turned out to have a rather muddled version of the truth.

When I found a newspaper clipping and some photos in one of my dad's boxes of family memorabilia inherited from his mother it made me do some quite detailed research.

My grandmother talked about a cousin who lived next door to Princess Anne. That was wrong, but it did turn out that her 1C1R Joseph Walter Jones was the schoolmaster at the village school on the Sandringham Royal estate and when the tutor for prices David and Albert was away on holiday, Walter took over as tutor.

He was also the royal pigeon trainer and accompanied the Royal Family on overseas trips to several places.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Jones-89342

I also have several pictures taken by Walter at Sandringham.

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Thanks, Jimmy,
Your answer was very good. Received others and they were also good. Was hard to pick one. 
Very glad Wiki has people like you.
Hal

Answer 2

There are many problems with links to online sources. Most if not all of the websites will at some point go away.

The answer is provide details about the information.

Instead of only providing a link to historicalrecords.com

Describe the information:

Birth: Samuel Richards was born on 23 September 1863 at 73 Queen St, Smith Township, X County, this place.

1871 Census Samuel is now living at 97 Mill Street, Queensville, Howick Township, X County, this place with his parents Bill and Jane and siblings William and Sarah

And continue this pattern, it can go in the biography or it can be added as plain text to the current online source.

The information itself is not likely to totally disappear, but the current links will at some time disappear.

In that case, if you want an online source, you can search for birth, marriage, death, census, historical records for X place. If you have factual information about the family members, where they lived etc you can find a new link if you find it necessary.

If all you have is a link, with very little info in the link and now it doesn't work, you may have trouble finding a new source.

We need to remember that sourcing and providing accurate information is not something that arrived with the advent of online research, it has been happening for a long time, the internet just makes it easier.

And also can make it easier to make mistakes, as we all know everything on line is not necessarily accurate or correct for the person named on the record.

Comments

Thanks for the star Susan!

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You deserved it M Ross.  What a great answer!

Answer 3

Keep in mind that each of these sources do allow you to make copies for your own personal use. While you can't share them, post them, or link back to your own personal stash, if the major concern is losing the original source, it's not a terribly bad idea to build your own personal database of actual images and maybe find a way to store them on your system or cloud storage. At least you could use them to reference at a later point, even if you ended up losing access to the original somehow.

Comments

I wish we could have two best answers.