How do I add reference to a source that is on a paid to view site?

Question

Most of my 'sources' are through Ancestry.com and I do not have access to many of the originals as I am in Australia and the documents are in England - eg: English Census Records.  I don't know of any free access sites to link to (I have looked on family search and either cannot find the information or it directs me back to to paid sites of Ancestry.com or Heritage.com)

Also I have a number of citations on one of my family tree profiles that I linked through another member that don't seem to connect to anything.

Answer 1

I'm going to refer you to a couple of pages here within WikiTree to answer your question:

The bottom of this page  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Sources_Style_Guide#Commercial_Web_Sites_as_Sources tells you to "transcribe" as much information as you can for those who don't have access to the pay sites.

This entire page  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Links_to_Ancestry tells you how to link your source citation to the actual record or image on Ancestry.com.

Comments

Hi Nelda, firstly thanks for responding and for the links.  Perhaps my question should have more correctly been "How/where do I transcribe the information for those who don't have access to the paid sites?"
Also as my subscription has lapsed, until I renew it I don't have access to the documents myself (other than the sections I have saved for personal use) and I no longer even have access to the URL address for the document even though the are still attached to the profiles in my tree.
All I have access to is the source citation details which just has a title such as "Scotland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1564 - 1950" however it does give a page reference or anything else like that.  I will be renewing my subscription at some time in the future and would be able to re-access these, but were are talking about over 1000 profiles that I eventually want to link to Wikitree, so would like to be able source them correctly from the start rather than have to re-do it all later.

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For the Scotland ones, can't you use the "online index" on Scotland's People?  Or the online index for UK Census online?

Also freeBMD and freeCEN are quite helpful.

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Thank you Melanie - I am all very new to this and unfamiliar with the free sites that are available so thank you very much for these suggestions,

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Hi Freda,

Welcome to WikiTree! Thanks for helping to build our tree and especially for your desire to transcribe your source information for others that may not have access to the original source(s) that you are citing. I generally create transcriptions/abstracts of the sources that I cite in a Research Notes section in the profile.

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Melanie, I am coming up against the same issue that I have with Ancestry.com with the UK Census Online - in order to get details / view the document I need to pay a subscription.  I don't mind paying to get the information, but it does not solve the issue that others do not have "free" access to my source of information.

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Good on you Freda ... I learned the hard way there and had to sort out hundreds of profiles over time with more details. I've added an ancestry source to your William Jenkins Luke - see source 29 - hope that helps, it's an idea anyway

It's the way I do it for those who don't have a sub, and for myself as I don't always have a sub. If there is an image sometimes I will also link to that but make a note "ancestry subcription required to view".

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Melanie, I am coming up against the same issue that I have with Ancestry.com with the UK Census Online - in order to get details / view the document I need to pay a subscription.  I don't mind paying to get the information, but it does not solve the issue that others do not have "free" access to my source of information.

commented 41 minutes ago by Freda Ackroyd

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This is also my situation, but I was told I only needed to quote what the INDEX said, so for those "pay to view the full item" places such as Scotland's People and UK census, that's what I do (well, there are some exceptions on Scotland's people, where I have paid for the viewing .. but I still give the online INDEX reference). 

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It's the way I do it for those who don't have a sub, and for myself as I don't always have a sub. If there is an image sometimes I will also link to that but make a note "ancestry subcription required to view".

commented 25 minutes ago by N Blacklock

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I also add a "need to pay to view" statement. 

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Ok - thanks for the update on William Jenkins Luke, I am assuming that the one you added is the number 29 in the list, and if so excellent example by the way.
You will note that I am a co-profile manager on that one and the original profile was uploaded by Sarah Black, I'm guessing through some kind of file transfer from Ancestry.com (sorry don't know the tech terms yet)  
Would I be right in thinking that the multitude of repetitive sources on this profile that do not seem to connect to anything, take up an enormous amount of space and have no real value would be the result of that upload?  And if so would it be appropriate to remove them and replace them with something more meaningful like the one that you added?

For that matter when it comes to Victorian registers of Births, Deaths and Marriages, I could reference them direct and if I work out how maybe add the link to that website as I use it often to verify what I am seeing on the Ancestry link as they do not provide an image of the document for these records.

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As an example .. ..

Per Scotland's People online index, pay to view full registration:

MCCONNACHIE

Forename JOHN

Parents/ Other Details ROBERT MCCONNACHIE/ISABEL ELLIS

Gender M

Date 25/08/1836

Parish Number 162/

Ref 30 198

Parish Mortlach

.

Online index view.  It gives the information, yet anyone wishing to pay $$ to view the full registration .. can. 

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Thanks Melanie,  I can at least transcribe like that from the extracts that I did make copies of for personal use
Can you or anyone else on here have a quick look at this profile:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ackroyd-303
and let me know if the way I have done reference [3] pertaining to his birth and linking direct to the website record is correct/appropriate for use in profiles

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It does lead to an online shop so to speak - but also gives the basic details free of charge

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I don't know what others may think, but it seems to me you've given enough information that anyone can find it themselves as well.

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Yes it was no.29 I added :) Yip I saw you were a co-manager there, and yes, all that garbology is the result of the initial ged import and a really good example of why its better to create profiles from scratch. It may seem time consuming but from experience I can honestly say it is way less time consuming than having to clean up gedcom imported profiles en masse.

Yes, if you have the time and energy it would be really great to replace all those useless sources with functional ones.

Happy wikitreeing Freda! And thank you for caring about sourcing ... it's really appreciated :)

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PS: To add a link - in the edit tab you c&p the url, leave a gap, then type what you want the source to read, and enclose all that in those square bracket thingys - eg: [https://www.familysearch.org FamilySearch] Once saved, on the profile page it will look like this -> FamilySearch

Answer 2

Yep, Ancestry com and now Find My Past and others are what are termed pay-wall sites.  You have to pay to get a peek behind the wall..

Take a look at these Profiles I created or added to recently.  They came from research done on Ancestry and when I imported the Profiles from a GEDCOM file. I changed all sources to Family Search sources where avaialable, but it didn't have every record Ancestry did.  So I used a transcript from the Ancestry records. Martha is simple, while David's only had a Wikipedia and Find A Grave sources and required a bit more intensive work.

Martha Auld

David Lawrence

Is it perfect, no.  But it is better than an unusable link to some folks.They are Open files so go ahead and click on Edit to see what it looks like in the raw.

Answer 3

Ancestry transcribed sources all have citations below, copy that. If it's an image of a document, there is a side panel you click out that has the citation info on.

Answer 4

I don't think it's illegal to take a screen shot of something you see on a paid site and then upload it to a free site. You can also use the print to pdf feature to make a pdf of the entire page you are viewing and save it for uploading that way.

Comments

As others have said elsewhere, you may be breaking the terms and conditions of a pay to view site. You may also be breaking copyright.  Ancestry and other sites pay   to host these images.  Sometimes, they may provide the services necessary for producing the images (and hence pay a reduced or no licence fee). These licence fees provide much needed income to the archives who hold the original documents. Moreover, I  would find it  much more expensive to visit the various archives to see the original records. Paying a subscription  is far less than  regular travel costs to even a nearby archives. I do use my local archives but not every day. I also sometimes use other local archives and the National Archives to use records that are nowhere on line. These visits can be extremely expensive  so are occassional.(travel, food, hotel costs)

My subscriptions  allow me to see records that would be otherwise unavailable to me. I'll  cite them in full and also transcribe records  (I've transcribed a large number of wills available on ancestry and placed them in wiki-tree).However,  I refuse to break the terms and conditions of my subscription which in many cases it would also contravene  copyright .

In many ways, It would be contrary to my own interest. If everybody did it this, there would be no profit for these companies in providing the service.  If they  did not make a profit they wouldn't provide the service.Local and National  archives in the UK (and probably elsewhere)  would also not derive the income from these companies that helps preserve and make accessible many other, less popular records

Here's an example of copyright  details on Ancestry for the 1881 census of England and Wales ( these images are not on any free site, Family Search has partial transcripts)

Original data: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1881.

Images © Crown copyright. Images reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England.

Images may be used only for purposes of research, private study or education. Applications for any other use should be made to The National Archives Image Library, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU, Tel: 020 8392 5225 Fax: 020 8392 5266.

Here's another set of records. This time for the Freedom of the City of London Admission papers. (I don't think these are available elsewhere unless you visit the Archives in London.)

Published in March 2010 by
London Metropolitan Archives  (address, telephone number and email in original)

©London Metropolitan Archives

Except as otherwise permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publisher, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the London Metropolitan Archives at the above address

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It is not legal unless you have explicit permission from the publisher and owner of the copyright, including derivative works. Just because you can doesn't mean you should!

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An alternative to posting images is to extract and quote  the relevant text from the source.

Answer 5

Simple answer - Don't do it!  Put it in your own personal journal but don't publish that in WikiTree profiles.