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| When you can't get to your favorite resource for your family tree anymore, there are 3 steps you need to take. |
Tragedy strikes! An important resource changed its website URL. They broke 328 of my valuable source citation links. I noticed it one day when I tried to go to my bookmark for one of the resource's databases. It immediately redirected from my saved link to their new homepage link.
I didn't panic. I figured they're doing a website redesign. I've lived through countless redesigns as a website manager. I know things can go wrong and take time to fix. I went back two days later and saw that they had indeed broken all my links and changed the whole interface.
Why is this a problem? Because we need to be able to prove our genealogy work. We need source citations so anyone (including us) can find the original for themselves, (as I did in Italy once). Seeing is believing.
We need to tell them where it's held, which book to open, which page to turn to, and even which lines to read.
But the archives in the province of Benevento, Italy, home of 90% of my ancestors, broke my citation links. What do I do?
If this happens to you with any online resource, take the following 3 steps:
1. See if there's a pattern to the URL change. You can use this new pattern to update your old, broken links. I noticed there was a unique 4- or 5-digit number in common between a record's old URL and new URL. A search-and-replace within Family Tree Maker didn't work, so I had to make the edits one at a time. That was a lot better than having to redo a search for each person on the new-styled website.
2. If there is no image, capture a screenshot of the facts, or copy the text, and paste it into your family tree. I can copy and paste each record's text and the new URL and update the source citation. I wasn't capturing all this detail in the past, including the volume and record numbers, but I will now.
When I save a document image from Ancestry, FamilySearch, etc., I add details about the image to:
- the image's properties
- the image's details within Family Tree Maker
- the source citation.
My census images, for example, tell you:
- which line numbers to look at
- the town, city, and state
- the enumeration district and supervisor's district
- which image it is (e.g. image 210 of 389)
- the link to the record
- the standard citation info provided by the website.
With that level of detail, even if the image goes offline, someone could access this census sheet. Note that I include document numbers or page numbers if they exist.
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| If you have to fix a bunch of broken source citations, seize the moment! Make them better and more useful. Make them hold their value. |
3. Search for the bright side. While updating my broken bookmarks for this website, I discovered a new database. I captured details on men from my ancestral towns who were born as late as 1941. That's huge! Birth records after 1915 aren't online unless a person married between 1931 and 1942.
Yes, this is an inconvenience for me. But I can appreciate how they wanted to update the website and shorten their clunky URL. It's possible a new team runs the website and they wanted it to look more professional.
What lesson can you learn from my tragedy? Prepare yourself for future broken links by capturing all the information. Imagine it's way in the future, and a young genealogist finds your family tree online. Those ancient links don't work anymore. But you've given them so much detail that they can track down the original record for themselves.
They're grateful that you were such a thoughtful, professional family tree builder.
But wait a moment. Did you say you haven't been very good about source citations? Then these links are for you, STAT!