Amsterdam City Archive: URL change

Question

The URL of the available indexes has changed from

http://stadsarchief.amsterdam.nl/archieven/archiefbank/indexen/index.nl.html/ Amsterdam

to

https://archief.amsterdam/indexen/index.nl.html

The resource pages Netherlands Archives and Nederlandse Archieven have been updated to reflect this change.

Source citations using the old URL don't work anymore (see Bea's answer below). I sent the people at Stadsarchief an e-mail complaining and asked for a automatic "redirect" of old to new URL.

This story once again shows one should not just use an URL to an index record as source citation, but also the text of that index record, like is done in the profile mentioned below

Comments

Do you use templates inside Wikitree for the links?!?!

Lesson learned is to make maintenance of links easier/possible we need to start use templates much more ==>

1. If we are lucky a new URL is just a change of the template
2. If not use Whatlinkshere and find the wrong links....

I hope start a dialogue with Swedish vendors of genealogy information to get them start understand the importance that other people can link to them and that they start using better more logical URLS....

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Dank Jan! Handig te weten ...

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Magnus,

URLs in this context are usually unique, pointing to a single index record, obtained by searching an archive, Use of a template for a unique URL seems not very useful. If the change can be implemented by a simple search/replace operation on a substring of the URL a bot would be perfect to do the job!

Also, creation and maintenance of templates is, for obscure reasons, restricted to leaders, not necessarily very technical people...

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@Magnus, does this work for all kind of different links added to one profile as well ? So if for example we are looking for and adding a list of the children that were baptized of one spcific couple, than we will add the links for the baptisms (+ all info ;) ) to the parents first, so now big chance these links are no longer working .. how would or could a source template help ?

We still template or not, would or will have to look up and replace all these links again if I'm correct ? (these probably are hundreds if not thousands of different links by now I'm affraid ...

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Link-rot is something that will only increase in this century, leading to mass digital dementia. That's why in our COGH project we choose to upload images as well, fully and legally sourced and cited. This way we still have the images or transcriptions, even if the links become de-acitvated.

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Re Jan Terink Templates

I have created templates for Swedish Parishes and it's not rocket science see SPC Toolbox used on Category pages for Swedish parishes

1. Templates takes arguments ==> jump to a specific place 
   {{MyTemplate|page=23455}}
2. I think a change replace is easier also if you have a template that the bot could identify and change the url

Lesson learned

1. External links change ==> if you are lucky then just a change in the template code
    
2. Its better to have the layout in the template than on the page ==> easier update ( I use templates that call other templates)
    
3. As we use those on Category pages sometime you find useful information about a source eg. a description about the Swedish National Archive using a template its easy to update all places with a link to the pdf...
   
   Archives available for Bo (T). Source: NAD, Riksarkivet (about video swe.)
    
4. as said earlier as a wiki has inbound links then its easy to find all places to update if we get some change that needs to be done manually ( I would live to see bots...)

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@Magnus,

Yes, I know all that. But not being a leader I am not allowed to create templates

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WikiTree need to change who can add/change Templates... Ales Trtnik doesn't either have privs to create templates so he need to use my slow brain and even slower fingers on the keyboard....

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I'm allowed to create templates, but not very experienced so have to educate myself or ask for some help as well, so I would ask someone from the template project for the more complicated difficult ones if after a few tries I would not succeed ;)  

But as for the source templates if I remember correct they no longer were recommended ?

Ok found this: Source templates for using the same source multiple times on different profiles — what might be called "source shortcut templates" — are not officially recommended but not officially recommended against...

but the sources we are using are not repeated but as Jan explained almost all unique and different for each person. So 

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Re Bea

We are speaking about External Links not Source templates

External links is when you have a link to an outside site and try to address what  Philip van der Walt  call Link-rot

Source templates is in my opinion when you add a reference to a source which doesn't mean it has to be an external link. Problem we can see now when we don't use source templates is that a tool like Project Database Error has to guess if a profile is sourced or not. 

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I can do some basic training using Google webhangout on creating templates on Wikitree see Templates-friend-or-foe

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We of course have the Template Project  so if people need a template or help creating one we can ask members of the project to create or help creating one , but a KISS explaining somewhere would really be appreciated of course :) 

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@ Philip I think that's the best approach as well, all info added + image and no matter what happens to the links we still will have everything here and no one will ever have to look it up again :)

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Indeed Bea, though just last week I didn't want to pay the A'dam City Archive for a baptism image that I triumphantly and excitedly had found (not that I do not mind paying, it's just that their system of payment is very client unfriendly and confusing) so I copied / pasted the [transcribed if you can call it that - it remains a secondary source because only the "facts" are "translated" into modern Dutch without the accompanying narrative] DTB- text, and then provided the full source as link: [https://archief.amsterdam/indexen/doopregisters_1564-1811/zoek/query.nl.pl?i1=1&v1=Claes&vf1=1&a1=Vijandt&af1=1&r1=45&x=19&z=b bronverwijzing: DTB 66, p. 318 Archief van de Burgerlijke Stand: doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken van Amsterdam (retroacta van de Burgerlijke Stand) Doopregister: NL-SAA-24310757] <ref>Seen and added by [[Van der Walt-440|Philip van der Walt]] May 23, 2016.</ref>

So a) we are still very vulnerable as eventual link rot goes b) this is what necessitates the who what where when and how citation form - this way we have the record trace to the digital source even so that there is at least some way to gauge when a web source was seen and added.

See in this regard the following blog: The Generic Rereference: Who though in our project we also apply the latter to include the person editing or adding (whether profile manager or not) information to facilitate pleasant collaborative editing and curation of content. It is one of the good practices in out COGH project that has helped immensely in creating some semblance of order in an otherwise sea of duplication of variants.

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"apply the latter to include the person editing or adding"

do you use wiki syntax with four tildes ~~~~

I use for Swedish Churchbooks the standard way one vendor have ==>

1. I get a reference that is to the physical book and page in the physical book
2. I get a fast shortcut to the digital book if I have the client

Example

Sura CIa:10 (1921-1935) Image 600 / page 52 (AID: v266094.b600.s52, NAD: SE/ULA/11492)
 

Sura  = is the parish
CIa:10 = is a unique number of the book in the parish defined by the Swedish National Archive
1921-1935 = year
page 52 = is the page in the physical book
NAD: SE/ULA/11492 = Unique ID in the Swedish National Archive

AID: v266094.b600.s52 = is the shortcut only used in the tool
Image 600 = the picture number in the tool

this combined with uploading also a screen dump which is ok if we tell the picture is from vendor xxxx
 

 

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I'm aware of the tildes. Only it doesn't function within a reference. And many times we also include whole sources fully cited within references. [Edit: and with profiles with many contribuants it is unsightly and disruptive to the reading of texts if the who added what when part is not in the footnote section of the biography].

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Ok I have seen that bug

I miss that not more people use ~~~~for adding comments....

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@Philip

I only pay for images at Stadsarchief if they can not be found on Familysearch. In this case the image is available on Familysearch:

"Netherlands, Noord-Holland Province, Church Records, 1523-1948," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1971-31143-15089-71?cc=2037985 : 21 August 2014), Nederlands Hervormde > Amsterdam > Dopen 1644-1677 > image 267 of 294; Nederlands Rijksarchiefdienst, Den Haag (Netherlands National Archives, The Hague).

 

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indeed so do I, but in this case I had an rough idea and had to collate a few name versions and that is not easy when doing it via Family Search (one big reason is that either they are not indexed and I have to "grasduin" through endless pages, or if they are indexed the transcriptions are more often than not untrustworthy). Also I did not have time - it was late and I had enough information to determine this progenitor's LNAB and have the profile PPP'd under the protective Project Profile as custodial manager, my quotum for the day had reached it's limit and I could send a list to Bea for protection. Now that I have the exact data from the Dutch Archives, of course it is much easier to use FS if only for the free image. Thanks for the link!

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@Philip,

 I have to "grasduin" through endless pages

What I meant is that after I searched and found an indez record at Stadsarchief, I go to familysearch for the associated image, through www.zoekakten.nl. Here is the howto for zoekakten.

Searching using this method one does not have to "grasduin" through endless pages. Having found the film that should contain the image it does not take looking at more than 12 images to find the image. That is when using pure binary search. Smart guessing the location can even speed up the search more.

 

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That's how I understood it Jan. This is why I used this method first before going to FS. As a librarian and information professional I'm well versed in how to search with the most efficacy. Every source has it's own "quirks" and getting to know them is winning half of the battle for efficiency. I added your FS image to her profile, and also acknowledged you. Thanks!

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Philip,

From your  "grasduin" through endless pages I gathered you searched via the FS indexes to the films instead of via zoekakten. As said zoekakten provides fast access to the image.

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One thought when you do screen dumps of a source I assume you upload it and mark it as a source ==> then we have an indication that this profile is sourced, we have a date and a location....

I think this is an excellent Best practice and it also open up to define new reports indicating what profiles in a family tree 

1. lacks a uploaded source document.....
2. a report of how many sources used on a profile
3. a report of number of sources and the time span and geographic distribution

I see this as an candidate to Project database Error that could help us track profiles with periods not well sourced....

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@Magnus

I only put links to source documents in profiles. Uploading source documents could raise copyright issues. Almost 100% of the official source documents (births, baptisms, marriages, deaths, burials)for the Netherlands are available in Familysearch, so I put their citation in the profile.

In general I put a three-part citation in profiles for the BMD events:

A. Link to index record of archive organisation

B. Text of the index record, formatted as a wikitable

C. Link to image (usually FS citation) of the source document

See Johannes Blomhoff for the way I do it.

P.S. I use a not very sophisticated Bash (Linux) script that does most of the formatting.

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@Jan

Ok in Sweden its ok to use pictures from Church Books from the two biggest vendors SVAR and Arkiv Digital if you state that the pictures are from them  ==> 

Example this is Munktorp AI:18c (1887-1896) Image 122 / page 464 (AID: v73278.b122.s464, NAD: SE/ULA/11082) uploaded as /photo/png/Hurtig-43

I try to 

1. add pictures of the churchbooks see
2. mark it as a source
3. use in the Title the unique id of the record 

==> we get some structured data of sources used and could understand if a profile is sourced ...... could maybe do a search inside WikiTree if other profiles are from the same church book = use the same AID v73278 (first part of ID) ==> could find other people inside WikiTree using sources from the same church book etc....

I hope WikiTree move in direction more structured data as then we could do much more.... 

Answer 1

Ok thanks Jan, and..does this mean all links we used are no longer working ??

Comments

Yes Bea, it means lots of non working source citations:

Deze site is niet bereikbaar

stadsarchief.amsterdam.nl heeft de verbinding geweigerd.

Thx, I overlooked that effect....

I extende the question with this new info.

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Already was afraid of that, and that's why I now always add all info from the transcript as well, no matter what archive it's from. It looks like maybe they do this on purpose ??

First the site was named Amsterdam archief or something...than they changed it into Stadsarchief Amsterdam and now all of a sudden and without warning (?) so totally unexpected it's changed again and now it's archief.amsterdam ...pffff so not funny :/

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Yes, If the Stadsarchief people don't offer an automatic "redirect", and I expect they won't, I can make it a personal miniproject fixing it

Googling site:www.wikitree.com/wiki stadsarchief.amsterdam.nl gives about 240 results...

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Ok that at least doesn't sound as bad as I expected , or maybe we could just leave the links out, if we have added and cited the other info from it I guess maybe that's fine as well ? 

If next year they maybe are going to change the url again, we will have to look for and replace them all over again, or maybe...I don't know if the wayback machine can help or prevent this problem in the future ? 

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The wayback machine is no option, entering an old URL results in:

Page cannot be displayed due to robots.txt.​

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I think you need to have a new link and try if it can be saved/captured there, than it will create a link of it's own to the captured/saved page that can be used and will work no matter how often a link to the original page is changed .Or something like that.

But I think even than it will not work because the hovering part probably won't work ? (so the info box we now copy, that only is shown hovering above the name)

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Ik denk aan een woord eindigend op een ........................... Je weet wel..........