Do links to Ancestry Library Discoveries expire?

Question

One useful feature of the Library version of Ancestry.com is that you can email home sources that you find.  The links to the individual 'discoveries' open without requiring any authentication.  I started adding these links to a few profiles but am wondering now if the links will expire at some point.  The earliest one I have is two months ago and it is still valid.

Does anyone know if these links expire?  If not, it seems like a great way to add Anestry.com sources to profiles that are otherwise useless to non-subscribers.

Some examples:

• https://www.ancestry.com/inst/discoveries/PfRecord?emailId=N-ea9469ff-fa93-4aba-94f4-d56c98b127bf&collectionId=7836&recordId=549276&ahsht=2017-03-28T18:23:33&language=en-US&ahsh=bb3b576decb13fb401c9cf1d34b1e1e1
• https://www.ancestry.com/inst/discoveries/PfRecord?emailId=N-2dd9649a-2d1e-4b43-9690-afee0efc5a5f&collectionId=1084&recordId=3059563&ahsht=2017-03-28T18:23:33&language=en-US&ahsh=01509585f2028f2b52804edceb2f5321

Some additional info from the Discoveries page:

• How long will I have access to these documents?

  You will have access to the last 300 documents that you saved to My Discoveries.

I don't think that means they go away, just that your own Discoveries page will only hold 300 entries.

• Can anyone else see my page?

  If you send them the link they can, but your link is personalized for you so no one else can guess what it is and look at your discoveries.

 

Comments

Links change/expire/get edited. Also, no one can see what info they're for unless the viewer subscribes to Ancestry.

Do what I do. Mail the docs home then save the content in your computer docs file to post on the profiles?

Bios/sources with just links and no info are useless for many of us as access is contingent on paying for Ancestry membership so there's no way the majority of wiki tree peeps can see, verify or use for further resesrch the "linked"

---

I think if you try one of the examples I posted, you'll see that it works without a password/account.  I agree that downloading and posting an image file is preferred, but in many cases, an image is not available.  I also agree that many/most ancestry.com sources are useless.  However, these Ancestry Library links are different.

---

I can see both. My UK Ancestry sub doesn't usually let me see overseas info, so these are great.

Answer 1

Kerry, I've seen it go both ways. Some that I shared to myself have stayed for over a year; others are not longer accessible.

If you do decide to add them to a profile, take my advice from hindsight and include enough information about the record that you could find it again without the link. For instance, your second link was to the 1925 Iowa State Census. If I were going to use that my source would say something like:

Ancestry.com. "Iowa, State Census Collection, 1836-1925" [database on-line]. Nevada, Story, Iowa, USA, Chris Nelson, 1925; obtained from the State Historical Society of Iowa via Heritage Quest. https://www.ancestry.com/inst/discoveries/PfRecord?emailId=N-2dd9649a-2d1e-4b43-9690-afee0efc5a5f&collectionId=1084&recordId=3059563&ahsht=2017-03-28T18:23:33&language=en-US&ahsh=01509585f2028f2b52804edceb2f5321 : accessed [date you were at the library].

It's long but mostly copy and pastes from the record that comes up from your link. With that information, you'll be able to find the record again if you need to. I wish I had done the same on mine that are now broken.

Comments

Yes, I agree that a full citation is best.  In a profile I added one of these links to, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Johnson-2067, I hid the ginormous URL in a 'Link' hyperlink.  At least if the link goes dead, it's not wasting a bunch of space on the profile.

Ancestry.com. U.S., Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Vol I–VI, 1607-1943 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original Data: Hinshaw, William Wade, et al., compilers. Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy. 6 vols. 1936–1950. Reprint, Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1991–1994. Hinshaw, William Wade. Marshall, Thomas Worth, comp. Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy. Supplement to Volume 1. Washington, D.C.: n.p. 1948.  ([https://www.ancestry.com/inst/discoveries/PfRecord?emailId=N-7fd3d8a5-1658-43a3-96b6-05b9e130296b&collectionId=3753&recordId=214182&ahsht=2017-05-08T17:11:09&language=en-US&ahsh=c7d503509892a5d6995c65fccad0cc42 Link])

 

---

Using the name from your source and Mary's name and birth year, I was able to find her record on Ancestry. I like the way you hid the link.

I'd probably add the volume number, monthly meeting name, and page number so that I could find the record if I had access to the books somewhere other than Ancestry. (Volume 1, Deep River Monthly Meeting, pg 785). None of that stuff is on the page that comes up when you click the link so you'd have had to make a note of it when looking at the image.

 

The link you gave and her name and birth I'd recommend adding the Monthly Meeting name to that citation. I've never used those records but from the webinar I listened too, the records are separated by meeting.