Balancing Link errors and Pre-1700 requirements

Question

This is kind of a Public Service Announcement.

I am sure there are a lot of you, like myself, who are faced with weekly errors/suggestions for links to sources that used to work and are now broken.

There is nothing in our guidelines that indicate that a link is required.   It says that the citation much have enough information that another person can find the source.  However, most people add a link, as that is the easiest way to get to the source and it saves time of creating a complete source citation.   Our guidelines indicate a need to describe the source completely.   Such as "US Census, 1900", database online. Home Township, Small Town, Washington, USA; pg. 100, family 10, dwelling 15, lines 150-157; June 1, 1900; National Archives Microfilm M-10, Roll 100" or Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633. Boston, MA: NEHGS, 1995. Volume I, pp 126-130.

The Pre-1700 certification process indicates that you should provide who made the record, what the record is, when the record was made, and where you found the record.     

So, you can use a link, or create a "COMPLETE" citation.  

 

Comments

Nice citation examples. I'd agree that a link is not mandatory, if the version you referenced isn't online (at the time you referenced it or now), though it's definitely nice if you have one, as you say...

But I don't think the link is an alternative for a citation, as implied in your last sentence. The link is one part of a citation. It's an address for a repository; it doesn't tell you anything about what is in the record or the type of record, who the record is about or who made it, when the record was made, or where the record was made or is archived.

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Providing a link within a citation transcribing a source enables the reader to check more easily that the transcription was correct.

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Robin is correct. And I agree with Jim that links can be very helpful, allowing the reader to find the cited source and check to see that it was cited correctly.

And I will add an important corollary to Robin's public service announcement: Valid source citations should not be deleted merely because the URL link within the citation has stopped working.

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I agree with Robin, if I/we provide enough information about the source that someone else can find the information on perhaps the same source/ website or book that I have used, or perhaps a different source that contains the same information, it is a valid source. We need to describe the source and how/where it was found

Sometimes there are sources that are not on a website. It does not make them less reliable.  

For example; I have the complete records for baptisms and burials at a particular church in England from 1562 to 1812. How do I have it, because I paid 7 pounds, 50 pence to download a pdf of those records from the Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy & Heraldry.

Some but by no means all of these records are available on Ancestry or FMP.

99% of the burials are not available on Find a Grave or equivalent sites because the headstones either do not currently exist or did not ever exist. Many people were buried in unmarked graves.  I usually source it as 'Records of Baptisms and Burials at X church available as a paid download from the Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy & Heraldry.

I know that 'today' it seems that all information should be easily available online on a website but it isn't.

Sometimes you have to look really hard to find a website that has the needed information, and it can be on a village history website, not on any of the major player's websites.

But finally, a link to a website is not a valid source, the link needs to connect to the actual record.

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There are some 'websites' which ask that you do NOT link to the exact record, such as the Cornwall OPC database:

"Please DO NOT link to individual records, as their numbers change when amendments are made."

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John Atkinson uses citations for Cornwall OPC which would be a good model for other community websites. 

 Cornwall Online Parish Clerks (Genealogy), online database, Cornwall OPC (https://www.cornwall-opc-database.org : viewed 7 April 2013), entry baptism of Mathew Wellington, son of Richard & Catharine, 01 Aug 1727; transcribed by Karen Duvall, from Bishops Transcripts.

The link is to the website; not the record(as requested) More importantly,  if the website disapears, all the necessary information is there. Sadly all such websites are likely to be ephemeral. The current  list of OPCs on Family Search includes 2 that seem to have disappeared.

But even long established  institutions re-organise their websites. My recent 'errors' include  broken links to admission registers found on the websites of two Inns of Court and to the original images of the Protestation Returns on the House of Lord's library website. I'm  seriously considering deleting these links rather than replacing them. (Links not citations)

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I agree with your argument, Helen. All information should be present in the citation. In this example, the parish, Luxulyan, is missing :-)

As you point out, OPC discourages links to search results. An option to consider is the link to the search itself. It may well not be permanent, but it's useful while it lasts.

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People keep trying to use links for ScotlandsPeople records. Those tend to break within an hour or so. That is why we tell people not to use links for that site.

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Indeed links to search results won't work, but a link to the site itself is helpful:

https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

Answer 1

"So, you can use a link, or create a "COMPLETE" citation. "

We should not give the impression that a link ONLY is ok - the complete citation should ALWAYS be given and a link is a very helpful addition.    

We try not to delete even bad links but to try to find them on wayback machine or from another place.

Answer 2

I guess I have made a decision. Working on extending the family tree around Somerset you find there are a number of very common last names. Often the best way to sort things out is by a process of elimination. So you form families with similar names and this starts to narrow the field. (This is surprisingly effective) These families are sourced and often stray back before 1700. I will no longer bother adding them to WikiTree seems a shame but it isn't worth the bother. This of course means earlier generations will not link children which is the main reason a one tree idea works so well. Even a pretty poor profile merged often reveals more than you expect.   

The problem of links disappearing is not really a top priority. After all the profile was/is sourced. It didn't appear out of thin air. As long as no one starts deleting these dead links a clue of where it has gone has disappeared completely. Delete it and the source it refers to will take a totally unnecessary period of research to find it again.

Comments

Chris, a link is not a requirement, as described above you can use a complete citation of the record so that someone else can find the information again if needed. Either on a revived website on a different one.

I believe that removing what appear to be dead links is a bad idea as Cindy says the links can often be found on the Wayback Machine.

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I think if the link has disappeared, that would be something you would move to "Research Notes" so it can remain on the profile and can be further researched in the event the information is recovered elsewhere down the line.

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Good idea Sjana!

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I originally thought that was a good idea but then had second thoughts. If it is moved out of sight it is also moved out of mind. Lost forever? It will be difficult to find them again. I think we can get a bit OCD about this. After all, they are suggestions. Having a suggestion is not a badge of dishonour. The comment about these links not being a priority was that if you arrive back at a suggestion to correct then you really should take the opportunity to see if other improvements can be made. The urge to spring clean is probably not that helpful. Since many of the links were entered years ago a lot more information has become available. It is a good time to revisit. Just removing a suggestion to tidy things up removes this reminder. It also sends a message to the profile manager that they need to have a look to check that damage hasn't been done. Time wasting.

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I'm a bit obsessive about suggestions, though I have very few suggestions other than the optional ones that come with having the Profile Completeness category added to my profile.

Sometimes I have Find a Grave suggestions and most are either easy to fix, or wrong to begin with.

The others, the Profile Completeness ones are most often things that can't be fixed, like death dates and locations when all I have are baptism records and most of them are for siblings of great aunts and uncles.

That's all part of researching from the most recent records and going back in time. I know about the great aunts and uncles but what happened in their siblings lives can't be researched from a baptism record.

Answer 3

I JUST REMOVE TE WWWPART OF THE URL AND IT STOPS ERROR....LEAVES BULK OF URL AND INTEGRITY OF THE SOURCE  ALSO ALLOWS COPYING INTO WAYBACK MACHINE TO GET NEW LINK IF AVAILABLE

SORRY MY GRANDSON LOVES PEANUT BUTTER AND MY COMPUTER....SIGH....CAPS LOCK STUCK AGAIN