Why are the source citations being suppressed?
When I open a source document, the source citation no longer is available. It has been like this some some months but it was spotty--now I don't see the source citation on ANY source document. How is this good? This makes your site and database virtually unusable for anything but looking at an image--attaching a source citation to anything is essential.
Poorly done.
If I'm feeling pessimistic, I'm guessing that this is to force everyone to Ancestry, which is a pay site. At least make the source citations able to be copied in fewer copy & paste clicks. It is so cumbersome and clunky, very aggravating.
Answers
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Can you share a screenshot or a link/URL? I'm not seeing that source citations are suppressed.
For example - here's the URL of a 1905 NJ census for one of my families. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KM45-RXC And the citation is visible on the left side:
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Given the completely different goals, business models, and data structures involved, and the complete lack of corporate connection between FamilySearch and Ancestry, conspiracy theories about forcing people from one to the other are ...not plausible.
Like Áine, I have not noticed any pattern of missing citations -- but then, I wouldn't, because when given a choice, I don't use the machine-generated ones, neither on FS nor on any other website. Sure, they're a convenience when they're provided, but they're often full of nonsense (such as "Archiv der Stadt Budapest" in citations for Hungarian civil registrations), and they're even more often missing the sorts of details that allow one to re-find the document if the URL goes awry. I find it's much easier to just write my own citation than to figure out the quirks of the automated process. (It helps that I don't actually care about citation formatting: as long as all of the information is there somewhere, I don't think it matters whether I separate things with commas or periods, or whether the URL comes before or after the repository.)
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"Given the completely different goals, business models, and data structures involved, and the complete lack of corporate connection between FamilySearch and Ancestry"
It is well documented that FamilySearch and Ancestry have a partnership. The two share records, indexes and images in a way that mutually benefits both. However it is far from clear whether that is relevant to the issue of source citations not being available.
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I haven't seen any evidence of source citations not being available.
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Perfect example ("no citation listed" option) of what I am viewing when looking for citation. In the upper let hand corner, the film # does not open with the place, parish, and vital information. When opening the "Information" tab at the bottom left, there is no way to open the Catalog Record for place and information, and the Citation is "No Citation is available". Persons not experienced with FamilySearch do no understand how to get to this information to view for themselves when this document is placed in "Memories".
Please help. Citations are crucial to sourcing.
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A few different things going on here.
One: the fact that the "address" cannot be changed from the film number to waypoints simply means that the film is not part of a waypointed collection. Just as not all films are indexed, not all collections are waypointed.
Two: there is a way to open the catalog record from the Information tab. Simply click on the item (the word "Kyrkoböcker", in this case).
Three: why are you placing sources in Memories? Why aren't you using the blue "Attach to Family Tree" button handily available to you? For public accounts like mine, the images are FHC/AL only, but your screenshot shows that you can see the image, so you can use the tool to create the citation, provide a summary or transcription, and attach it to the relevant profiles.
Four: even when they're available, I avoid FS's auto-generated citations. They're full of weird stuff that makes no sense. For example, the Hungarian funeral notices have robocitations that include the text "citing Bibliothek National Széchényi, Budapest (National Széchényi Library, Budapest)", and the civil registrations have "Archiv der Stadt Budapest (Archive of the City), Hungary". I haven't a clue why those mishmashes of English and French or German are included, or what those bits are supposed to tell me -- the civil registration citation I used was from Balassagyarmat, not Budapest, and while the OSZK has a collection of funeral notices that overlaps FS's to a large degree, it's not the same, so the identity of the library (in whatever language!) is irrelevant to the citation.
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Julia, Thanks for responding. I place sources in Memories for four reasons:
1) to share with my great-grandchildren, as I want them to know and see (view) the importance of vital records.
2) to view documents (vital records) so that if and when the URL changes, the Memory is still available. I have spent too much time re-sourcing links that are edited, changed or broken.
3) to include the source information for the document on the screenshot so that there is a "breadcrumb" for the viewer, which also....
4) eliminates controversy. Anyone viewing my Memories can see that I source everything I can. I have experienced surname changes in my tree that is just simply frustrating. I have contacted the persons changing surnames, only to be told by one (it's a "Finnish name"--to a Swedish family that has been on the same farm, same parish, same county, since before 1750) and provide no documentation, or, by another person, send me to another popular website with a link, only to not have any documentation at all on that website.
I agree that the "new look" of FamilySearch has a bunch of irrelevant auto-generated citations. Too bad, kinda like the new irrelevant AI.
Thank you for responding. I would love to understand "waypoints", but at my age, I still miss microfilm readers. Scrolling took time, but also held treasures.
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@GloriaHorrellKendallUdy, I agree that sources are important, but my question remains: why are you putting them in Memories? That's kind of like storing the flour in the linen closet: it can serve the purpose, but not particularly well.
If you put your sources in Sources, where they're intended to be put, then you can tag conclusions with their supporting evidence, provide a full transcription or translation of the entry in the Notes/Description field, and even describe your reasoning in the reason box. If you happen to forget to include a date for the source, any other user can add it, unlike the situation in Memories. And you can include a screenshot or other image as part of a source, without needing to go to the Memories section.
So really, I do not understand the reasoning behind using the closet instead of the pantry.
As for "waypoints": those are "the place, parish, and vital information" that you can sometimes switch to by clicking the down-arrow after the film number when viewing an image on FS.
As you can see, the Hungary Civil Registrations collection is waypointed: you can browse the images by county, then city/registry office, then type. In contrast, the Hungary Church Books collection is not waypointed: you have to find the films in the catalog.
(The left-hand box is what you get if you click the down-arrow; the right-hand tooltip is what you get if you hover your cursor on the top gray section.)
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