Hello, Sourcerers! It is time to start sourcing! Prior month stats will be posted soon.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please click the "answer" link (not the comment link) if this is your first month or if you can't use the Challenge Tracker.
To participate:
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.
On to the monthly challenge:
You only need to answer this month's post if you are new to the Sourcerers' Challenge. If you opt to use the Tracker you are good to go. If you opt to list your sourced profiles here, add an answer with the required details. If you exceed the character limit add a comment to your answer. Please number your contributions. Obviously, the Tracker is faster and less work for everyone. 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
You can add sources to any profile. The tracker should only be used when the profile meets the Monthly Challenge definition of Unsourced. In other words, profiles improved must come from the Unsourced categories or be already present on WikiTree and unsourced.
After you save an edit, a green banner appears at the top of the page. In the banner is a black “button” labeled Challenge Tracker. Press that and, on the page that comes up, select Sourcerers challenge and the appropriate comment (or fill in your own if none of the canned answers fit what you did). Hit Add Action and you are finished. The Tracker tracks the number of profiles you add sources to. 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
You can improve any profile but only track those that come from the Unsourced categories or which are already present on WikiTree and unsourced. Orphaned profiles are another great place to look for unsourced profiles. The hope and goal is to improve the profiles already on WikiTree that do not have sources. Adding sources will also help merges happen which will improve our tree. Showing folks what sources you are using helps newer researchers see just what is available out there for us to access.
- Only track improvements to profiles that were created more than a week ago.
- Only track improvements to profiles that do not have any sources, with the following exception:
- If the only source is a link to a profile, a search results page from another genealogy website, the words "Ancestry tree," "Geni.com," "Pedigree Resource Files" from FamilySearch, or the like, adding a better source will be a valid update for the Sourcerers' Challenge. If you add better sources to profiles like this, use the Challenge Tracker to include it in your tally.
- The tally is of profiles improved, not sources added. That said, if you can add a number of sources to a profile, all the better.
- 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.
- If you find a match and can merge a profile into an already sourced profile, that counts too. You found a source, plus you eliminated a duplicate. Awesome!
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/20191001/User.htm
Ask any questions here in the thread, otherwise, SOURCE!
See this thread for info on milestones https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/797329/