Adding Sources by hand with photo documents

Question

Ok, I'll try to make this as short as I can. I have a good amount of ancestors listed in my tree. Not all but that can come later. I'm doing this all by hand because I don't trust GEDCOM even if I knew anything about it. I have a tree on Ancestry that I work from so it's fairly easy to go back and forth.

I am planning to add photo's of citation documents to the respective profiles, Is this acceptable? Or should I put them in a free space and link from there? There are census records, death certificates, military records, Birth certificates and headstone rubbing photo's.

If that is ok, can I then write a citation to link the info to each profile that it applies to?

If that is acceptable I could use a little guidance writing the citation as the more I read about writing those the more confused I get meyself !

Any better Idea's will gladly be considered.

Answer 1

Suggestions

1. Beware of copyright issues.

2. If you got the copy of the document from the internet, you can link directly to the location instead of adding a copy to the profile. [https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-266-13036-73115-44?cc=1325221 1900 Census Francis Bennett- Brooklyn NY], which ends up looking like this - 1900 Census Francis Bennett- Brooklyn, NY and links directly to the Family Search image.

Comments

Anne,  I am aware of the honor code and do not wish to knowingly infringe on any one's copyright. Most of the document's I'm referring to did come from Ancestry, Family Search and Find a Grave. I'm not a legal expert by any means but I thought that as long as credit is given through citation all would be good. Am I wrong?

  In my Ancestry Family tree program I am allowed to produce a Book. I can download immages along with citations that gives credit to the source. I fail to see the difference here. I have a love/ hate relationship with Ancestry anyway mainly because I contribute information to them, they copy federal, state and other documents and then sell that information! I pay for the privlage of locating that information through their site. If they didn't want me to have a copy of a census record for instance they shouldn't have a SAVE button their tool bar! I'm not copying information with out permission in my way of thinking, they have allowed it!

  Sorry for the rant, Had to get it out there!

  So, If I understand you correctly it would be better to just list the citation from the record I downloaded and link it.  If I do that then they would need a subscription to view it correct?

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I'm sorry, I was not particularly suggesting that what you have cannot be copied. I was merely putting in a caution, for readers in general. I have seen pages from still copyrighted books posted here as photos.

US Government documents are not copyrighted, so you should be safe with the census. You are correct that if you link it to Ancestry, I would have to have a subscription to read it.

On the other hand why would I take the time to copy a photo from Find a Grave, upload it here, and then go to the trouble of citing it etc, when it is so easy to add a link to the Find a Grave photo page.

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Anne, Thank you and I understood you just needed to vent, sorry!  As for the find a grave comment I have pictures of a rubbing of the head stone that is not on find a grave but I would link find a grave as well. The headstone is worn and hard to read anyway.

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John, I'd love to see your profile when you're done.

Answer 2

You can upload records or photography to any of your profiles and add citations right on the page when uploading. You can even attach more than one person to a record or photo. Any additional information you may have other than the date, location and what is in the photo can be added to the commemts section ( like actual names in order on a photo). Hope it helps.

Comments

Nice answer Judi, I like it.