Ebitbot change required - Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria

Question

I'm requesting an editbot change please.

The source link to Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria (Australia) changed some time ago.

Old link: https://my.rio.bdm.vic.gov.au/efamily-history/

New link: https://www.bdm.vic.gov.au/research-and-family-history/search-your-family-history

The old URL use to automatically transfer to the new search page however it now transfers to a blank page with the 'Births, Deaths and Marriage Victoria' header only.

It's only a matter of time before the page disappears completely. An editbot change now will head off a stack of errors.

I hope this makes sense

Eg

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bartheyl-1

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Myers-10294

Answer 1

There are over 9000 profiles using https://my.rio.bdm.vic.gov.au/efamily-history/ and they all point to a specific records. Changing it to a search page description has no value. If it is no longer possible to link to the actual record, there is no need for the link. It is similar to saying use google to find something. Best solution would be to find alternative to those records online.

Comments

New South Wales also links only to the search index.  That's how those states do it.

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Further to the above - pretty much all states except Queensland and Tasmania only allow for a link to the search index.   Such issues are covered under the Australia Project's sourcing guidelines, where (to quote from Victoria's page):

It is not possible to link to the search results page. Supplying the registration number and registration district, and the spelling of the name in the entry (especially if spelt incorrectly or abbreviated) will help identify the index entry.

And also:

An example of a birth index citation:

Victoria State Government, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria. Richard Goodall Elrington. Birth. Registration number 3218 / 1870. Father: Name. Mother: Name. District: Place. Link to search page

An example of a death index citation:

Victoria State Government, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria. Ellen Lowrie. Death. Registration number 8874 / 1898. Mother's name: Mary Glendenning. Father's name: Jno Smith. Age: 63 Place of Death: Melbourne. Link to search page

An example of a marriage index citation:

Victoria State Government, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria. John Lawrie & Ellen Smith. Marriage. Registration number 266 / 1856.Link to search page

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I'm afraid there are no alternatives that are not hidden behind a pay wall.

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I'm pretty sure a similar discussion was held some while ago regards the NSW BDM links.

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For Victoria and New South Wales, if the registration number and year are stated in the citation, the record can instantly be looked up on the search page by entering the numbers in the appropriate fields. Contrary to what Aleš says, there is great value in giving a link to the search page: it allows the reader to check easily that the citation is correct. Of course, this only works if the link is valid, so running EditBot to update old versions of the links makes perfect sense.

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I can't find Melanie's reference to a discussion about NSW BDM, but there is a previous one about Victoria BDM which resulted in EditBot fixing links at

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1584371/suggestions-news-and-updates-may-21st-2023?show=1585462#c1585462

The new link was

https://www.bdm.vic.gov.au/research-and-family-history/search-your-family-history

which is not the search page but the front page of the repository, as recommended by Amanda in her question above, and that will be the best solution this time too.

Answer 2

Pointing to a search page is unfortunately the only way anyone can refer back to BDM Victoria. Is it not preferable to have a link to a search page rather than 9000 broken links in the future? (Although not to the same degree, this happened some months ago when the State Library of South Australia changed their server and has not been completely sorted as yet)

Answer 3

Ales would it be easier to do the changes in batches, maybe 1000, and provide me with a list to go thru to check each one. I'd be happy to do it. A good many of them may have been born, married and died in Victoria so it would reduce the number of profiles to go thru.