Is anyone creating Free-Space Profiles for sources?

Question

I am linking directly to the sources in each profile, such as Google Books or Internet Archive.  If the link ever changes in the future, every profile with the link will need to be edited.  Also, some sources are available at multiple locations. I don't want to put duplicates to each source in every profile. The sources listed in each "Person Profile" would then only need to link back to the source "Free-Space Profile".  This Free-Space Profile for the source would have the link to the actual document.  And, it would also give us a forum to discuss the source, point out errors, etc.  It would also create a WikiTree library of sources that could be used for additional research.

Comments

I think there is a good point here. But what exactly are you suggesting? Almost all my own sources are specific to individual people e.g. birth/marriage certs, probate, wills etc.Is there any point in listing those in a Free-Space Profile? Or are you suggesting that general sources such as IGI and Record Offices should be listed and the detail remain with the individual?

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I was only thinking about sources that required an external link. 

Most of my sources are genealogical books/records published more than 100 years ago. They contain a lot of information for many different families. Also, many people use sources from web sites that cost money. They may not realize the same source is available at a free site too

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Let me point out that WeRelate.org took on creating a page for every possible source. They downloaded some huge file from the LDS and built out from there. Their profile pages are beautiful, with stunning citations. AND it's been a HUGE amount of work for them to clean up and maintain the Source pages.

Example:

Profile Page of a Person

Source Page (one of my favorite, har har)

As you'll see they created a separate wiki space for Sources; i.e. www.werelate.org/wiki/Source:

I would NOT recommend recreating the wheel. It was a nightmare. Perhaps there's a way to collaborate (with WeRelate.org)?

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Yes, that is exactly what I was thinking. Thanks for the links. That is great information. I still don't like using the same external link (source) in multiple WikiTree Profiles, out of fear that the link may change or I find a free link to what was a pay only source. Both will require a lot of work to fix the links.  

 

The WikiTree Free-Space does allow us to collaborate. I've created a Free-Space profile for one of my sources, as an experiment to see how it works. One problem I see is that I can't do a search for Free-Space profiles that have been created by others. This is not a requirement, but it would be nice.  Maybe people have already made Free-Space profiles for their sources or other things that I may may find useful.

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On reading all the comments, I can see a place for this, but if my source is e.g. a London marriage cert. visible on Ancestry, it is only ever going to apply to two people and possibly fathers and children. That presumably isn't something you would want anywhere other than the profiles. Putting a link to another page for Ancestry in general is no better than just putting it in the profile.

BTW in England most libraries have subscriptions to Ancestry which you can use free for short periods. Is there similar in the US?

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Martin,

The source is where you got the certificate. In this case Ancestry.com.

Another example might be a marriage certificate from a website published by the Ohio State Department of Vital Statistics. So a source page could be THAT.

The specific details of the marriage certificate show up in the citation. Look at the Profile Page I linked to (at WeRelate.org) above. The source info is the outermost paragraph; the citation is the indented part. And as you see, the source part is linked to a specific source page.

 

 

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Sorry to disagree, but over here we see the source as the certificate containing the information. Ancestry merely publishes it from either the General Record Office or perhaps London Metropolitan Archives. They being the repositories.

I would give Source - marriage certificate, Repository - GRO and perhaps refer to it being available on Ancestry. Ancestry is only a place that publishes the resource for the public. The important place is where the actual record is located. In the case of a familysearch record, I give source as parish register (assuming it is) trancribed by familysearch. In that case familysearch is the repository of the transcript and one possible repository of a copy of the parish record, The original is probably in the local record office. The parish record is the original source and the transcript is derived.

In your case of the OSD, I would still argue that the source is the original document and OSD is the repository.

The citation is simply a reference link between the profile and the source.

Different ways of doing things obviously. But that is the way my tree is referenced and I'm not going to change it all now. In the end, providing the reference gets someone else to the right place, that's fine. I'm not suggesting anyone changes their system if it works.

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Ah Martin... if you only knew the disagreements I've had with Elizabeth Shown Mills (author of the "bible" on Sources, Evidence Explained) on this topic. We'd be on the same side, you and me. She makes the case that Ancestry.com is a publication not a repository. She would refer to the general World Wide Web as a repository. In the case of Ancestry.com, the publisher is Generations Network, Inc.-- the owners of Ancestry.com... And if you look at how Ancestry.com displays its source citation at the bottom of most pages when looking at a record, they follow this same format.

Elizabeth is the recognized expert in the field-- at least in the U.S.-- and the certifying body that will ultimately make the decision about my certification when I go for it, concurs with her. I've stopped arguing.

I do agree with her that a marriage certificate published via Ancestry.com (or any other web site) is different from an original marriage certificate that you hold in your hand. And that the point of providing source information is to help the reader  a) try to find it themselves and b) judge the quality of it as a piece of evidence.

Frankly, as long as those distinctions are made clear here, I don't care so much about what we call a source and repository-- I just want to encourage people to be a bit more exact in describing where they got their evidence. Heck, I'd be a lot happier if people said ANYTHING about where they got their evidence. 

-- Jillaine

P.S. if you look at the source page on werelate that I linked to above you'll see that WeRelate chose NOT to follow ESM on the definition of Ancestry.com as a publication, but instead refers to it as a repository. ;-)

 

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I've seen a lot of criticism of Elizabeth Shown Mills over here too. Ancestry contains copies of for example certificates and censuses etc. etc. I'm quite happy if people want to refer to those as sources, because they at least point you top the original source. But many family historians over here would say you haven't checked properly unless you've seen the original. I shall stick to ancestry photocopies, but refer to the original source they are taken from. One of the problems is always going to be getting beginners to take sources seriously and not believe everything they find, particularly inaccurate transcripts and Ancestry is full of tyhose.

I agree entirely with your last para. Anything is better than nothing. I also agree with para. 3.

Probably one of the best things we can do is have oien discussions like this in G2G as often as possible in the hope that as many as possible will read them  and think.

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While I am not in alignment with ESM about everything, I fully respect and admire her. I had the opportunity to take a week-long course with her. I've seen her speak at conferences. She's one of the smartest humans I've met. AMAZING when it comes to evidence analysis. And her southern accent will charm the heck out of anyone. She has advanced the field of evidence analysis more than anyone I know. AND she engaged very respectfully with me in my disagreement with her. 

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@Martin Allen WRT libraries in US with access to Ancestry.com - yes, libraries can get a subscription to ancestry. I volunteer at a library and we provide free access to same. Includes access to non-USA records, which, as you likely know, is convenient as indiv accounts do not, without a premium subscription.

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Ah, that sounds much like we have here. Many people fiond it very useful.

Answer 1

I have created a freespace page for the Hillmorton Parish Registers.   I intend to put the images of the registers on that page and refer to them in numerous profiles.  Please look at what I have done and see if you have any suggestions.

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Hillmorton_Parish_Registers

Comments

Do you link to a specific image or to the Free-Space profile? There is a special syntax for linking to a Free-Space profile, and this probably does not work for linking to a specific image. One suggestion is to open up the security level so that other people can add information about this source. Is the security level of the Free-Space profile shared with all the individual images? It would be nice if we had a central location were we could document all these Source Free-Space Profiles, so that other people could use them as sources too.

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Very nice work, Vic.  I find that when I have numerous people/relatives mentioned in one document, I create a free space source page like you did, just for that document and link the specific profiles to it.

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All I did was to include the URL for the specific image in [***], with a description of the doc to be highlighted.  On the specific document page, I use the Comments box to say where each person can be found on that doc.  Example:  [http://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Hillmorton_Parish_Registers]

I definitely think the source documents should be available for use by anyone, but the Privacy for Free Space pages is the same as other pages.  I didn't want to leave the Privacy completely Open for fear that someone might mess with it.  Rather than use Open privacy, I think the best way would be for someone to request Trusted List status.

I agree there should be a good listing of these Free Space source pages so others can find and use them.  I have used Sources inside each profile to say where I got these docs (Ancestry), but I think I should also include a note indicating the source with each document on the Free Space page.

Answer 2

Hi Rick,

Great post and comments here.

I agree that a free-space profile can make sense when a source is useful for multiple people. It keeps you from having to repeat the same text and, like you say, from needing to update the same text when it changes in the future.

Speaking of the future, two likely improvements to WikiTree but for which you shouldn't hold your breath ...

1.) A better free-space profile search engine. In the meantime, categories can be helpful for this.

2.) Bots that enable you to search for strings of text in profiles and change them for you.

Also related ...

Dallan and I continue to talk about possibilities for collaboration between WeRelate and WikiTree. Right now he's consumed with other projects but there's a good chance that down the road something will happen.

Chris

Comments

Collaboration?  Cool!

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That would be awesome. AND challenging. The "culture" on each site is very distinct. (If you think *I'm* pushy and hard core about sources and documentation... !!)

Wikitree seems to be more "family friendly." WeRelate's culture is much more like Wikipedia and I think has more "tech" resources behind it.

Both are great. Each has its own strengths.

 

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I have had some success using Free Space profiles for sources.  I am now showing sources from my Free Space profiles in my People Profiles.  

I also made a Free Space profile that contains a list of Free Space profiles for each source.  The list is here: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Sources-1.  I don't actually use this list in my People profiles. It is just a reference for me and allows me to share my sources with others. This list can't be edited by other WikiTreers, but the individual sources are open to everyone on WikiTree.  It is the Free Space profiles for the individual sources that I am linking to in the People profiles.

The link above has become my own personal library.  The information about each source is minimal right now, but I hope to be adding more information over time.

Answer 3

I have created a space page for photos of source documents. I put all the sources on the person's page but wanted to put all the photo's of the actual book page or documents somewhere. I did not like how it looked on the person's profile ID page, because I have no control of the order of the photo's on the profile page. So I created a space page to put all the source photo's for that person, and linked it in the source section.

I also have created a personal project for myself with a space page here

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Patentees_of_Monmouth

The Patent of Monmouth, New Jersey established the first  English Settlers in the state after the Dutch lost control of the land due to losing a war. 12 men were given the patent and are listed in the Document. I put the actual text of the patent on the page and have been searching for and linking the men listed in the document. I have contacted the profile managers letting them know that I was linking to their page and why. I asked to be added as trusted of the profiles and then have been adding to the Biographies of each men's profile of written biographies of the patentee's in one of the history books written in 1800.

I have only been working on this for a couple of days so I am not done yet.

Some of the men have Find A Grave pages which I am also linking to the profile.

I also link to the original books located at Archives.org.

Comments

Excellent work and use of the FreeSpace pages, Kari.  Thanks for sharing!

 

Keith

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Sweet! that is really fine work, Kari!

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Well its 10pm and I think I have finished with my space page listed above.

All 12 men are linked. All have the sourced biography's added and all have the Monmouth Patentee Image I created, added to their profiles.  My rear end is sore from sitting here so long, need to get up and do something else now :)

I really think that each of these men's profiles needs to be catogorized as historically significant and I would love to be one of the managers for their profiles so I can go in and clean up all the merges that need to happen. I created 2 of the men so they are clean. But 10 of them had existing pages and a ton of merges needs to happen for these guys.

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Very nice source page, Kari !  Agree with Jilliane that sourcing is easier at We Relate but the wiki community, privacy features and set-up is very user-freindly at Wikitree. Collaboration with We Relate in the future should be interesting .

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OK, I will be citing to the Fitchburg VRs (that'll peak Chris's interest,) and I would like to like to post or link to a picture of the page in the records that I got from Google Books.  I will be using the same pages for lots of Sheldons and Gibsons, so I don't want to have to put the pages/pics in each Profile.  Is a Free Space page the way to go?  That alleviates the problem of changing URLs and multiple uploads of the same page.

Answer 4

Hi Rick and all library lovers,

I don't think this is exactly what you had in mind (it doesn't auto-update), but I created a list of links to free on-line resource materials.  A few are on WikiTree, but most are on other internet websites.  The e-books are mostly on GoogleBooks and Archive.org.  You are welcome to add to or improve "Kitty's Library", but please only add e-books and such that are free, easily accessible, and with a direct link to the searchable webpage.

http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Space:Kitty%27s_Library&public=1

Enjoy!  KinCityKitty 

Comments

Don't forget   http://openlibrary.org.  You can sign up for an account for free.  Unlike Google, It has books that are within copyright.  Only one person at a time can check out a specific book, but isn't really a problem with the type of books we use.  It is great if you can find the book you need.

 

 

 

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Kitty, that is a great list. Some of these items could be made into their own Free-Space Profiles (Some have already been created). This would allow us to: 1) Link to the Free-Space page in profiles, as a source. 2) Collaborate on the source: repositories, errors, etc. 3) Assign a "location" and "Surnames", (supports surname following?). This places it at top of Surname Genealogy page.

 

I am not sure exactly what is currently being done with the location and surname assignments, but it has potential.

 

How can I get "Kitty's Library" on my watchlist, so I get notified of updates?

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I think if you are on Kitty's Library  and request to join the trusted list that it might go on your Free Space Watchlist.  Send me a request and we can test it.

My goal with Kitty's Library is to make a list of quick links to on-line resource materials so they can be copied and pasted directly into profiles as needed.  However, it would be great if folks wanted to add links to their own Free-space pages in parentheses at the end of individual entries.  Something like: (See Place Names-1, Xxxxx, and Yyyyyy) would allow users to get more information if they wish, but still leave the functioning copy and paste link.  Would that work?  

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I never reported back here on the G2G forum. Yes, adding me to the Trusted List of Kitty's Library sends me update notifications whenever you change Kitty's Library. This is another great use of a key feature in WikiTree.

 

I have been trying to work with your other idea of "copying and pasting" from the Free Space profile. This doesn't work if you want to include Wiki syntax in the cut and paste. However, there is a special Wiki syntax that does support this capability.  The syntax is <nowiki></nowiki>

 

It is best explained with an example: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:A_Memorial_of_John%2C_Henry%2C_and_Richard_Townsend

Answer 5

I guess I shouldn't have called it a "bibliography". Regardless, here's the one I just created: http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Space:Packer_Bibliography&public=1

Maybe some of these should just be attached to the individual, but I think they are of broad enough interest to anyone researching Packers. 

To make it generally "findable" I am adding a note and a link to the page at the end of all the Packer bios that I work on (slowly, slowly)

Comments

I started to use the "Source" category for any Free Space Profile that is used to document sources. I have never used Categories before, but if you simply add [[Category:Source]] to your Free Space Profile, it will be automatically listed on this page: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:Source

 

I don't know if there are rules about how a specific category is used, but my thought is that this new category should be used for sources that document 100s or 1000s of people (genealogical books, databases, etc.).  In otherwords, sources that can be used by many WikiTreers.

Answer 6

An example of one approach would be the Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Settlement in Virginia Free Space Page. That free-space page provides information about one compilation of court records, including where it can be found online and commentary about the source itself.

Importantly, it includes a citation example and a footnote example. The footnote(s) reference the citatation and the citation replaces the name of the book with a link to the free-space page. As an example, if you look at the profile for James McLaughlin (1760 - 1830), one of the footnotes refers simply to Chalkey and the volume and page referenced. The "Chalkey" is a link to the citation later in the sources. The citation identifies author, name, publisher, etc. The name of the book in the citation is a link to the free-space page about that book.

The free-space page also includes a link to a list of profiles that link to it. So if everyone followed the citation example, an index of all profiles that cite that book would be available.

Comments

   That's a great example of the many Source pages that Rick Pierpont created in the 8+ years since he posted the question here.