Advice before editing this pre-1700 Swift profile?

Question

I have information to contribute to the profile of Ephraim Swift. This is what I can add:

• save button not working

These are the sources I am using:

Should I contact one of the pre-1700 projects or know about any style guidelines before proceeding? Thank you!

Comments

Erlon, what exactly happens when you try to save? Do you get a warning at the top of the page ? If so, what does it say?

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Nothing happens. Nothing.

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Erlon, typically when "nothing happens" after an edit-save, there is an error message at the top of the screen. Usually in a red banner.  Can you try again?

What are you trying to change?

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Thank you, Jillaine. I'll try again later today and let you know. I appreciate the help!

Best,

Erlon

Answer 1

Hi Erion

You have not yet come back to Jillaine about the save problem have you solved it?

In regards to the source I can see on Ephraim profile initially they look good butt here are no url / weblinks to the information so folk can easily find these again in the future

All source should be open and avialable without having to take out a subscription, use ancestry and find my past as places to look for hints but then take the info to free sites.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Sources

Hope this is useful 

Regards Janet Pre-1700 greeter and Volunteer Coordinator

Comments

Thank you, Janet. I'll try again and report back later. I intend on fixing the sources.

Best,

Erlon

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Hi Janet,

Thanks for providing guidance to Erlon here, but I have to respectfully disagree with your statement that "All sources should be open and available without having to take out a subscription". While it's good to use freely accessible sources when possible, some sources may not be available on a freely accessible site. It is better to have a fully cited source from a subscription site than to have no source at all.

A full citation of a source from a subscription site allows many individuals with such a subscription, and many others with access to a library which might have such an institutional subscription, to view such a source, if desired. A complete citation of a digital copy of a source can also allow someone to view an original of that source at an original physical repository for which the subscription service had digitized. As you mentioned, links are also beneficial to include in (but don't replace the need for) a full citation, since the goal of a source citation is to make it as easy as possible for future researchers to find/access the source. The full citation is needed even if there is a link since the link will likely eventually fail over time.

Ancestry.com (using record/image Share options), Newspapers.com (using public Clippings), and possibly others subscription sites also allow subscribers to share with non-subscribers freely accessible links to particular subscription content. Such links can be included in the full source citations and can provide a view of such a source to non-subscribers.

Whether or not the source is from a subscription site or not, I'd also recommend abstracting the pertinent information from the source and including it in a research note or other section of a profile.

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Thanks Rick for you comments

Having cleaned up a number of profiles with sourcing that consists of [[ #S371 ]] and not much else, it is frustrating when trying to build a profile and often it all has to be redone.  If as you say Ancestry subscribers can use a share option which gives more details, great, wish more folk would use it. Yes a citation is better than none, but a number and little details does not equal a citation.

The following is from wikitree own guidlines on sourcing

Links to sources on paid subscription sites such as Ancestry, FindMyPast, and MyHeritage can be frustrating for WikiTree members and visitors without access to these sites. We recommend searching for a freely available copy of the source document on sites such as FamilySearch, USGenWeb, Archive.org, or HathiTrust.

If the source record is only available to paid subscribers, when providing the URL please also extract as much information as possible, such as relevant names, dates, and the source of the original data.

Perhaps I could have worded my response a little better however as you can see my comments are based on wikitree guidence https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Sources_Style_Guide

Thanks again Janet