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WikiTree Sourcer| User Guide | Release notes | Frequently Asked Questions | Wish List (enhancement requests)

WikiTree Sourcer User Guide

Introduction

Setup

Everything in WikiTree Sourcer (except for the context menu) is done via the popup menu which is accessed via the [1] icon in the toolbar of the browser. To make this icon show up on the toolbar in Chrome it is necessary to "pin" it.

Chrome

In the Chrome browser this is done by clicking on the "puzzle piece" icon to show all extensions and clicking on the pin icon next to WikiTree Sourcer:

Google Chrome extensions popup

Firefox

In the Firefox browser the icon appears to show up without having to pin it. If it is not pinned then click on the puzzle piece icon and then right-click on WikiTree Sourcer and select "Pin to Toolbar".

Safari

In Safari on a Mac or a large screen tablet the Sourcer Icon shows up to the left of the URL bar. The extension has to be enabled - this is usually done when you run the app to install it.

Initially the icon will be grey.

When you click on it (when on a supported page) you will get an Apple menu asking for permission for the extension to access the page.

Once you grant this the icon will be blue (or whatever you have set as your highlight color).

Options

On the WikiTree Sourcer popup menu there is an item named "Options...". This opens a page in a new tab that allows you to setup how you want the extension to work. It is worth checking out all the options as you get to know the extension.

Search Menu Options

Because there may eventually be a large number of web sites supported by Sourcer, there are options that reduce the number of search sites shown on the main Sourcer menu.

In order to give the user a lot of flexibility there are a lot of options to control how many search sites are shown on the main menu, what order they are in etc. Also, the sites are limited to those sites with records in the lifespan of the current profile and in the same countries as the current profile.

If the main Sourcer menu is not showing all the possible search sites then there is a menu item "All Search Sites..." to allow you to see the remaining ones.

Here are some of the option settings:

• Search: General: Maximum number of search menu items to show on top-level popup (0 means just show search submenu)
  • If you make it really large (say 99) then, on the main popup menu, you will see all sites that are within the lifespan and countries of the current page.
• Search: <site name>: Priority of the search menu item for this site on the top-level popup menu:
  • This allows you to set the order of the items on the main menu. You can also hide sites that you never use by setting the number to zero.
• Search: <site name>: Priority of the search menu item for this site on the search submenu:
  • This allows you to set the order of the items on the search sub menu ("All Search Sites..."). You can also hide sites that you never use by setting the number to zero.

On the search submenu there is a yellow row at the top. Clicking on this allows you to modify the lifespan and countries used to filter this sub menu. The filter checkbox settings are remembered, so if you turn off filtering by country, the next time you use the search submenu then it will not filter by country.

Options Dialog

When on the Sourcer Options page there is a dialog that can be displayed using the "hamburger" icon at the top-right of the page.

WikiTree Sourcer options dialog

This allows the options to be exported, imported or reset.

• Export. This button will export your current options to a file. There are several reasons you might want to do this.
  • You could save the options as a backup before experimenting with different options.
  • You could save several different sets of options that you want to switch between for working on different projects.
  • You could save them and load them into a different browser on the same device or a different device so that you are using the same options across all your browsers/devices.
  • You could save them and send the file to another WikiTreer to show what options you use.
  • If you are a project leader you could save them and publish them as the preferred options to use for your project (if you want to be that prescriptive). In this case you could edit the file to only contain the option settings that are important to the project.
• Import. This button allows you to select a file that was exported and import the options from that.
  • Note that, if the file being imported does not have an entry for some options, then those options will remain at their current settings. This allows people to share selected settings with other users. If you want every option at the default except for the values imported then simply reset your options before importing.
• Reset. This button resets all options to the built-in defaults.

Search from WikiTree

When on a WikiTree profile (in read or edit mode) the popup menu allows you to search other sites for sources for this profile.

Each site to search has different features. For Ancestry, FindMyPast and FamilySearch there is a ">" symbol to the right (for example of the "Search FamilySearch" menu item). This gives you a choice: you can click on the text (e.g. "Search FamilySearch) for a default search; or you can click on the ">" to get a sub-menu with more options.

Building Citations

When on citable record page the menu allows you to create a citation or search other sites for information on the person.

There are three options for creating a citation:

1. Build Inline Citation - creates a inline citation
2. Build Narrative with Citation - creates some narrative text followed by an inline citation
3. Build Source Citation - creates a citation suitable for pasting after the == Sources == line.

The citation is put into the paste buffer (clipboard) so you can use Ctrl+V/Cmd+V or whatever your platform/browser uses for paste to insert into the WikiTree biography.

On FamilySearch and Ancestry person pages it is also possible to create citations for all the sources at once.

Building Household Tables

When on a supported census-type record page there is an option on the Sourcer menu for "Build Household Table". This will generate a WikiTree style table or list that can be pasted into a WikiTree profile.

There is also an option to automatically generate the table when you build the citation (or vice-versa).

The options page has a "Household Table" tab that gives you options for how the table (or list) should be formatted. This page gives some examples of different styles.

Search from other sites

When on a record page you can search other sites based on the data on that page. This works similarly to searching from a WikiTree profile with a couple of exceptions:

1. The "Search with Specified Parameters" may have less options since a WikiTree profile can have multiple last names and/or multiple spouses.
2. For some records there is a new sub-menu option: "Search the same collection for the same record". This only shows up if the record is in one of the collections that WikiTree Sourcer has been setup to support for this. For example when on a census record in Ancestry it will let you search for the same census entry on FMP or FamilySearch. For an England & Wales birth or death registration it will let you move between the same record on Ancestry, FMP, FS, GRO and FreeBMD. The search will not always perfectly find the right record due to differences in how place names (or registration districts) are recorded on different sites. Often revising the search to remove the place details will give the correct match.

Adding profiles in WikiTree

Sourcer has a feature that fills out the fields in the WikiTree Add Person page from either an external profile or from a record citation.

When you have filled the fields (or manually typed some in) you can also use WikiTree Sourcer to search from the Add Person page - either search WikiTree for duplicates or other sites for sources.

NOTE: More documentation of the Add Person flow on WikiTree is here.

From a profile

• When on a profile page (in FamilySearch, Ancestry or FindMyPast) there is a menu option "Save Person Data". Select that.
• Then go to WikiTree and add a person (e.g. use the clickable links in Edit Mode that say: "add/remove child", "add spouse", "add sibling" or to add an unrelated person use the Add -> New Person menu item on WikiTree).
• In the Add Person page on WikiTree (also called "Edit Family") when on the second step ("Enter basic data") there will be a Sourcer menu item "Set fields from Person Data for: <details of person>".
• Click that item and it will fill out the fields on the page with the information from the external profile.
• There are options under the "Add Person" tab of the options page that will generate an introductory paragraph (among other options). If you use this, and there is more than one possible parent, make sure you select the correct one at the bottom of the page before doing "Set fields..."
• If on a FamilySearch or Ancestry person page it is also possible to include citations for all of the sources in the person data.

From a record

• When on a record page (on any of the sites supported by Sourcer) use the usual menu options to build a citation.
• Then go to WikiTree and add a person (e.g. use the clickable links in Edit Mode that say: "add/remove child", "add/spouse", "add sibling" or to add an unrelated person use the Add -> New Person menu item on WikiTree).
• In the Add Person page on WikiTree (also called "Edit Family") when on the second step ("Enter basic data") there will be a Sourcer menu item "Set fields from Citation Data for: <details of person>".
• Click that item and it will fill out the fields on the page with the information from the record the citation was built on.
• There are options under the "Add Person" tab of the options page that will automatically add the citation on this page (among other options).

Updating existing WikiTree profiles using MergeEdit

Sourcer has a feature similar to WIkiTree X that uses the WikiTree merge feature to allow you to compare and update the fields on an existing WikiTree profile from either an external profile or from a record citation.

From a profile

• When on a profile page (in FamilySearch, Ancestry or FindMyPast) there is a menu option "Save Person Data". Select that.
• Then go to a WikiTree profile for the same person and bring up the Sourcer menu.
• There is a menu item "Merge/Edit from external data...". Click this.
• On the submenu select "Merge/Edit from Person Data for..."

From a record

• When on a record page (on any of the sites supported by Sourcer) use the usual menu options to build a citation.
• Then go to a WikiTree profile for the same person and bring up the Sourcer menu.
• There is a menu item "Merge/Edit from external data...". Click this.
• On the submenu select "Merge/Edit from Citation Data for..."

Details for Specific Sites

A full list of supported site is here.

Ancestry

Citation

With default options an Ancestry citation will look something like this:

1861 Census: "1861 England Census"
Class: RG 9; Piece: 122; Folio: 40; Page: 11; GSU roll: 542577
Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 8767 #5010161 (accessed 2 September 2021)
Harry A Pavey (8) son, in household of William H Pavey (54) in Pancras registration district. Born in Plymouth, Devon, England.

Sharing Links

Ancestry provides a feature where images on Ancestry can be shared using a "sharing link". Sourcer will include a sharing link in the citation when possible (but only if there is an image associated with the record).

Older sharing links were quite short URLs like this:

https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/26033082?h=b2ba14

however Ancestry changed them in the fall of 2022 to be more like this:

https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/124775?token=IwUOyl5r0uGdVofgaziN4akCiU45VGB%2FcVyzYVcihLQ%3D

then later they changed them to the current really long form like this:

https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/124775?mark=7b22746f6b656e223a22653971497339503248774c2f4d7277337441793335314e30674c6d706263787064484e67325732657175553d222c22746f6b656e5f76657273696f6e223a225632227d

The WikiTree Ancestry Sharing template handles all three forms so it hides the long URL when viewing a profile.

It can seem as though the sharing link is not much use because Ancestry has removed the ability to zoom. However this can be easily worked around. For example if you click on the last (longest) link above...

• If you have the Sourcer extension installed you can use this menu item on the Sourcer popup to see the full size image: "Go to Fullsize Sharing Image Page"
• If you don't have Sourcer installed then follow these steps:
  • Right-click on the image and do "Open Image in New Tab"
  • Edit the URL to remove this from the end: &maxWidth=520

There has been some discussion about whether to include the full size image link like this in the citation rather that the Ancestry sharing link (or in addition to it). At first, we wondered if a link like that would be persistent but they do still seem to work a year or so after being generated. However, Ancestry has not said anything about supporting those links long term so, currently, Sourcer doesn't put links like that in the citations it generates.

FreeBMD

Citation

In order to build a citation you need to be on the "Entry Information" page. To get there from the search results click the red "Info" button next to the search result that you want.

GRO

Search

If your search finds more than one record then click the radio button next to the one that you want and then bring up the popup menu to build the citation. By default it will use the first match.

Citation

With default options a GRO birth citation will look like this:

Birth Registration: "England & Wales General Register Office"
GRO Online Indexes - Birth (accessed 6 August 2021)
Pavey, Mary Eliza (Mother's maiden name: Ellacott).
GRO Reference: 1844 Jul-Aug-Sep in East Stonehouse Volume 09 Page 338.

Library and Archives Canada

See this page for details.

National Archives of Ireland census records

The census record pages are not specific to a particular person. Sourcer adds the ability to click on one of the rows in the census table to select it. You can then create a citation for that person (or do a search for that person).

National Library of Ireland - Catholic Parish Registers

Since the image are not transcribed or indexed the functionality is a bit limited. To create a citation Sourcer will ask you to enter some data from the image.

Newspapers.com

When citing Newspapers.com it is best to create a clipping and cite that. That is what Sourcer supports.

This way anyone can view the image of the clipping.

If you are on the page for the article (example) and you want to cite the article "Series of Atrocious Murders at Sea" then click the button "Clip" at the top right of the web page. Then select the area of the page to cite, optionally enter a title and press the "Save Clipping" button.

Then... click the "View Clip" button that appears. Now you can use Sourcer to create a citation. Here is an example of a page like that.

If someone else shares a clip with you you can just go to the clip page and use Sourcer to create a citation.

Obituaries are a special case that confused me for a while. If you search obituaries on Newspapers.com or Ancestry you can end up on a page like this. Although this already has an area selected and a title it is still not a clip page. But there is a "Clip" button at the bottom right of the sidebar on the right. Click this and then "View Clip" as described above and you get to a page like this. This is a normal clip page that you can use Sourcer on.

Context Menu

On any site (when the WikiTree Sourcer extension is installed and enabled) if you right-click on any hyperlink there will be an additional item named "Sourcer: Open Link in New Tab". If the link points to an Ancestry or FindMyPast page then this will redirect the link to the domain that is specified in the WikiTree Sourcer options page.

WikiTree Sourcer context menu

Similarly you can select the source text for an external link template and right-click and use the same menu option to open it. E.g. try selecting the line below and right-clicking on it:
{{Ancestry Record|7814|7041136}}

This also works for Wiki Ids. For example if you select this text: Pavey-343 and right click it will open the profile page.

You can use this in Discord for example when someone posts a link or template.

Accessibility

It is possible to use WikiTree Sourcer with the Keyboard or a Screen Reader.

In both Chrome and Firefox it is possible to set a keyboard shortcut to bring up the extensions popup menu.

In Firefox by default the shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+Y on PC and Cmd+Shift+Y on Mac. But this can be changed by putting this in the URL bar: about:addons

In Chrome there is no default shortcut but one can be set by putting this in the URL bar: chrome://extensions/shortcuts

Once the popup menu is up it can be navigated using the keyboard with the tab and space bar.