Hello, Sourcerers! It is time to start sourcing! Prior month Owl Stickers and Sourcerers Badges will be posted soon.
To participate:
- Review the Rules
- If you are new to the Sourcerers' Challenge, click the "answer" link (not the comment link) and tell us you are participating
You only need to answer this month's post if you don't already have the Sourcerers' Badge. You are welcome to add an answer to ask questions or offer encouragement.
If you have a problem with the Tracker let us know by adding a comment to the question that opened this thread.
USING THE TRACKER
The tracker should only be used when the profile meets the Monthly Challenge definition of Unsourced (see the Rules). Add a comment to the question if you are unsure if something counts as Unsourced. You can use either the Unsourced Profile Category or the DBE Report for Unsourced profiles to find profiles that will definitely qualify.
After you save an edit, a green banner appears at the top of the profile edit page with a dark “button” labeled Challenge Tracker is a link to the Tracker page. Click the link and, on the page that comes up, select Sourcerers challenge and click the appropriate hint in the right column (or fill in your own if none of the canned answers fit what you did). Click Add Action and you are finished. The Tracker tracks the number of profiles to which you have added sources. You can see the results for any monthly challenge using this link. The current month is at the bottom
http://wikitree.sdms.si/Challenges/SourcerersChallenge/default.htm
Remember, your sources need to be as full and specific as possible, so others find them useful. That means, if the source is online, you should link to it. If it is a page from a book, the page number should be included so others can easily see where you found the reference. Some books and magazines have free-space pages to help with citation formats. Find them in the Source Category.
When you can, it is great to do a bit more while adding sources, like clean up the GEDCOM leftovers or help the formatting from older profiles. Sources are important, but if you cannot find them among all the other stuff, they are not helping as much as they could.
The Orphaned profiles category is another great place to look for unsourced profiles.
If you attempt to add sources to a profile and cannot find any, please add a note under a == Research Notes == section (click the link for examples and instructions on placement) giving where you tried to find records. Something like "Looked for John in the US Census records for 1900-1940 and could not find him on FamilySearch or Ancestry" would be fine. Or, "Searched google for an obituary and did not find one." That way the next researcher knows where to start. Do not remove the Unsourced Template and do not use the tracker to count in your tally.
The Monthly Challenge runs from the first of the month and ends on the last day of the month, GMT time.
The Current Challenge Tracker Results Page has up the minute stats for those of you using the Challenge Tracker.
http://wikitree.sdms.si/Challenges/SourcerersChallenge/20201201/User.htm
Ask any questions here in the thread, otherwise, SOURCE!
