What to do with Ancestry sources

Question

On numerous profiles I have adopted, they have references to Ancestry links that don't work or come up with an error.

Are we to keep this in the bio's or can we delete it during bio cleanup?

Answer 1

Please see this current related G2g thread.

Answer 2

Definitely see Rick's thread suggestion. These are just my thoughts:

If there is information in the source (for example, the town/city, roll number, etc. for a census record), then definitely keep. But if there is no way to track down the source from the information given, I tend to delete it, and (ideally) add a better one when possible. If no other sources are possible, it might be better to leave the less-than-great source rather than have nothing.

Good luck - and thanks for helping to clean up profiles!

Comments

If there is a link, there is generally (but not always) info that an Ancestry subscriber may be able to render into additional info, if not an actual source. So when in doubt I'd recommend not to delete info that someone else might be able to use.

Answer 3

Some time ago, Ancestry changed their URL structure, making all old links no longer valid.

Often, though, there is still enough information in the old link to reconstruct it into a proper new link. (and there is a template one can use to make that task easier).

Unfortunately, sometimes the links are just simply no longer valid, due to closed accounts, etc.

If its possible to repair the links (or replace them with something else equivalent), this should be the preferred course of action.

Answer 4

I often come across those and simply add "Broken Link" beside them.  Keeps what info there is, yet warns folks the link doesn't work.

Answer 5

I replace them with valid sources with valid links.  If a source is only available in Ancestry, I would reformat it according to citation standards, omitting the invalid link. For example, Ancestry always claims that they are the "author" of a source in their ridiculous citation format.  They might be considered a publisher, but they're not an author.  I see no reason to keep their inferior citations and broken links in any profile I adopt.

Comments

I just flip their citations giving credit to the actual author, but still acknowledging Ancestry as the provider of the information. I keep an excel database so I just copy/paste, then add the date I accessed and the details.

The Ministerial Directory of the Ministers of the Presbyterian Church. Oxford, Ohio: The Ministerial Directory Company of Oxford, Ohio, 1898; database, "Presbyterian Ministerial Directory 1898" (Amy Armstrong, compiler), Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2001 Ancestry Record 6077 #6951 : accessed 1 January 2019; citing PostID 6956.

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Lucy's example is the ideal way to cite an Ancestry source. It credits the origin of the data while indicating Ancestry is the repository it was found in.

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Lucy, like you I have a word documents with my most-used sources and plug in the specific information. I also keep Ancestry in the citation because ultimately it was *how* you accessed the source which is quite useful to know if you ever want to look for it yourself.

Answer 6

I usually move broken ancestry links as well as links to user trees below a == Acknowledgements == header as they are not valid sources, but can be used to find good sources.