Should we remove unrecognizable source citations?

Question

The source #S4 on this profile does not tell me anything and it is not explained on the profile. As it is triggering DB error 864: Almost empty tags, I would like to remove them, but would also like to hear if they can be used to find the proper source somehow.

Comments

In the case of William Scrope, reference citation S4 was contained in merged-in profile Le_Scrope-7 and it apparently corresponded to an Ancestry Family Tree at http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=7122234&pid=1489 . I found this in the profile history at https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Le_Scrope-7&diff=23419479&oldid=23417916 .

Apparently the Ancestry URL was deleted because it didn't work -- likely because Ancestry reorganized the website and all URLs in the trees.ancestry.com stopped working. It would be worthwhile to edit the URL to see if the tree still exists and has sources.

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The Ancestry URL converts to https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/7122234/person/1489/facts . Neither the person's profile nor the tree are available on Ancestry.com any more, so there's no need to hang onto the "S4" citation.

In cases like this, I suggest retaining "Ancestry Family Trees" as a citation (and in this case it would make sense to include the name of the page owner, Michael Stephenson) until such time as there is better evidence for the profile. Knowing that the only "authority" for some of the profile data was a personal family tree may make it easier to make future decisions about the profile.

Answer 1

I've dealt with a number of profiles that have numbered sources that cannot be identified from the context of the profile.

• Occasionally the person who created the profile is an active member and can be contacted for information about the source. We should never overlook that possibility!
• Sometimes I identify the source by reviewing the change history of the profile -- because another WikiTreer had diligently "cleaned" the profile by removing source numbers from the sources list.  Sometimes the source can be identified from the change history of a profile that got merged into the profile I'm looking at.
• Other times, the full citation didn't get imported with the profile when a Gedcom was imported. In those cases, I am sometimes able to find the source by looking at the source numbering in other profiles (particularly profiles for close family members) that were created by the same Gedcom import. This may also require looking at the change history of the other profiles

The effort to find a source seems worthwhile when it turns out to be a good source that can be properly cited. I also find it satisfying to confirm that it's a bad source that can be deleted.

Comments

That’s the process I go through, Ellen. See comment above.

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Ellen, That's what I do too. I've run into the issue with gedcom imports not including certain sources. Very frustrating. For me, this was due to a long-standing bug in the WikiTree import app, where some sources are excluded from the profile but the citations that point to them are included, causing broken citation links. (See this G2G post for one example of that issue -- I never heard whether the bug was ever fixed.) 

That bug wasn't the issue for this profile, and I agree with your comments above on how to handle it. Sometimes slogging through the Changes log produces a gem!

Answer 2

Some are at best preliminary tags. For persons that I have known it is enough for me to say that I have known this person, which means that I may have attended the person's family get-together, birthday or graduation parties, weddings, or funerals, If I have more data I am  usually delighted to add it.

Limited data is likely for someone trying to piece together data that is otherwise lost. Someone putting in hundreds of 'new' people on  WikiTree might be more interested in connecting back to early ancestors already in others' files or fleshing out families.

I may have little, but I might be certain. Let us remember that I may have information gleaned from my old Rootsweb site that is effectively out of commission for altering or using data . I am not going to do on Wikitree what I did in Rootsweb Family Connect in attempting to connect to celebrities, historical personages, scientists, politicians, actors, war heroes,  and cultural creators. I assume that most of that is done. I will eventually find some connection to several Presidents, Sir Winston Churchill, Bertrand Russell, Charles Ives, Thomas Edison, John Wayne, Lucille Ball, Ernest Hemingway, L. Frank Baum, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and George Patton, all of whom were in my old Gedcom.    .

Heck, one time I was looking for a connection to Ulysses S. Grant and got Robert E. Lee instead!

Comments

I am really sorry, but as English is my third language, I fail to recognize which part of your answer would be an answer to my question.

Answer 3

Juha, when I see these kinds of sources, and they truly do not lead anywhere, I get rid of them. Leaving them just creates too much clutter, and I have not found them to be of any use. I replace them with true sources I have found.

Comments

I disagree with "just get rid of them," particularly in the all-too-common instances where we have not yet found any other source to support the information in the profile, or where the information that was attributed to the unidentifiable source disagrees with other sources we've found (maybe it's data for a completely different person who's been conflated with the one we are looking at).

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Ellen, I don’t  get rid of them if they lead to any kind of source. I do, however, when they don’t lead anywhere. Usually it’s because someone has come along and edited it before I got to it.

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Pip, often (including the case of the profile linked in this question) the reason that a citation doesn't lead to any kind of source is either that (1) the source information didn't get attached to the profile when a Gedcom was imported or (2) some other WikiTreer deleted some of the source information.

When an unidentified source is the only basis for significant "facts" in a profile, completely deleting the unidentified source can make a bad situation worse because there are no longer any clues on where those "facts" came from.  I'd rather that a profile indicate that its information came from somebody's Ancestry tree than to have absolutely no indication of where it came from.

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I see your point. 

Answer 4

The are span links (internal page links).  Gedcom imports, especially those from Ancestry create a lot of these, they are basically just on-page hyperlinks that jump you to a different part of the page in the same way inline citations jump you to the sources at the bottom of the profile.  In this case, the links on this profile are broken, either from the Ged import itself or maybe through editing (possibly a post merge edit).  Even when the span links work, they are often unnecessary as they are redundant to the Wikitree inline source citations.  So long as any sources are retained, deleting these shouldn't pose a problem.

Answer 5

I am currently dealing with a big mess in my great great grandmother. Here is an example.

<ref>Source: [[#S1646]]  Year: 1920; Census Place: Jonesport, Washington, Maine; Roll: T625_650; Page: 14B; Enumeration District: 175; Image: 612    Page Year: 1920; Census Place: Jonesport, Washington, Maine; Roll: T625_650; Page: 14B; Enumeration District: 175; Image: 612</ref>

which links to this in sources section

* Source: <span id='S1646'>S1646</span>   Ancestry.com, 1920 United States Federal Census (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.)   s, Inc. Note: Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. (NARA microfilm publication T625, 2076 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C. For details on the contents of the film numbers, visit the following NARA web page: <a href="http://www.archives.gov/publications/microfilm-catalogs/census/1920/part-07.html" target="_blank">NARA</a>. Note: Enumeration Districts 819-839 are on roll 323 (Chicago City).   TID 0  Footnote Ancestry.com, 1920 United States Federal Census (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.)  ShortFootnote Ancestry.com, 1920 United States Federal Census  Bibliography Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census. Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. Repository: [[#R4]]   Year: 1920; Census Place: Jonesport, Washington, Maine; Roll: T625_650; Page: 14B; Enumeration District: 175; Image: 612    Page Year: 1920; Census Place: Jonesport, Washington, Maine; Roll: T625_650; Page: 14B; Enumeration District: 175; Image: 612

All of that boils down to just this little valid info under sources.

* Source:1920 United States Federal Census (Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.) Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. Census Place: Jonesport, Washington, Maine; Roll: T625_650; Page: 14B; Enumeration District: 175; Image: 612    Page Year: 1920; Census Place: Jonesport, Washington, Maine; Roll: T625_650; Page: 14B; Enumeration District: 175; Image: 612.

This lets you know where you could find it if you have access to the actual film. It can still be used to cross check if you find something in familysearch at which point it will get replaced.

So, that #S4 may hook to something else in the sources. It was sort of an ancient ref tag. It can probably be deleted. But try to salvage as much info as possible if you can.

(BTW the one link in the whole mess is no longer valid due to changes at that website)

Comments

And I can now replace all of it with this.

"United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MF87-KHS : accessed 3 January 2019), Sarah Smith in household of Henry Smith, Jonesport, Washington, Maine, United States; citing ED 175, sheet 14B, line 75, family 342, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992), roll 650; FHL microfilm 1,820,650.

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With all due respect, Steven, the situation you describe is the way that Gedcom imports were designed to work "back in the day" (and possibly still...). That arrangement isn't wrong, but it is always desirable to clean up those citations in the manner you describe.

What's far more challenging are the profiles like the one Juha linked to, that have footnote entries like "#S4" that don't connect to any corresponding S4 entry in the Sources list.

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With all due respect, I did say "may", "probably can delete", and "try to salvage"

Answer 6

The Peerage has sources cited like that. However, source #S8 is cited on WIlliam's bio.

Answer 7

One thing I'd like to mention is this: I've run across old profiles of mine, imported early into Wikitree that I had not cleaned up beyond the basics. In some cases others have attempted to clean them up, or at least make them look "prettier." In doing so they've removed those old "S4" type references, as well as the original sources to which they linked. Then profiles got merged, etc.

I can still track down those references since they link back to my own personal database where the sources are numbered the same as these references. I wouldn't care much if they were deleted, since I still have them in my own database and can still add them back when necessary. Others might not feel the same, though.

I guess that I'm saying that while they're unrecognizable to you, they aren't to me.

Comments

Your comment illustrates why it's a good idea to try contacting the person who created the profile, rather than assuming the unidentified source is no good.

Answer 8

I move the questionable source links to an area under Acknowledgements with a note that these are sources that need verification or improvement to make them viable sources again.   That way they are there for those who might be able to read them.   There were several long threads about how programmers can read and get really good info out of what looks like gedcom junk to most of us, so I would advocate not removing them but perhaps moving them to an area so they are easily identified as needing help.