How do we get access to GEDCOM generated profile sources?

Question

I find that a majority of profiles imported by GEDCOM from Ancestry.com and others have no working links to the sources that were referenced?  It gives a numbered link that only goes to the edit section of the imported WikiTree profile.

Comments

Unfortunately there are many profiles like this.

Answer 1

That is one of the issues that will be worked on during the upcoming Clean-a-Thon. That is one of my personal favorite suggestions to work on. I am not the only one that likes to do gedcom cleanup.

If you post the link to the profile that you'd like the sources for, I think you'll find that quite a few people here do have access to Ancestry and could get you a proper citation, if not a working link to the record.

Comments

Thank you for your work on Clean-a-Thons Lucy.  I don't have one particular profile at the moment.  I will try posting profile links when I come across gedcom source problems in the future. Much appreciated.

Answer 2

Most GEDCOM exports do not maintain proper citation links. There's nothing you can do about it, other than find the original source of the export (find who's tree was exported)

The GEDCOM file is merely a transfer medium from one genealogy program to another, and not everything transfers correctly (neither the export, nor the import).

Answer 3

I switch out the Ancestry Source to a Family Search Source, when available,  that way anyone can use it and you don't need to search Ancestry.  If the Source is an Ancestry Family History Tree,well  I have an Ancestry Membership and those never work for me.  Except for being a hint that the GEDCOM file came from Ancestry, they're useless.

Comments

Many Ancestry links are bad because Ancestry changed all of its URL formats a few years back.

The Ancestry external link templates enable repair of the bad links. For example, if you have a old-format URL for an Ancestry Family Tree that looks like this:

http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=475790&pid=197186

You can replace that entire URL with the Ancestry Tree template, like this:

{{Ancestry Tree|475790|197186}}

(In that template, the first number is the tid number and the second number is the pid number.) That will generate a URL fpr the person that should work if the content still exists on Ancestry. If you are a subscriber and the resulting URL does not work, try deleting the second number from the template:

{{Ancestry Tree|475790}}

That generates a link to a personal tree, in which you can search for the name of the specific person.

I find this feature very helpful for figuring out what the profile creator had in mind -- so I can propose an appropriate merge, add good sources, correct errors, or otherwise improve the WikiTree profile.