How do I add, as a Source, a (government) website that does not have page-specific URLs?
The GIS team at the City of Marietta, Georgia has a great deal of historical data about their significantly historical city. (GIS associates geography with data so that you can ask questions like "What events happened within the area I've outlined?").
The difficulty for FS is that the results, whether one or many, are displayed within a "viewer" that can be zoomed, panned, and clicked, but whose URL is generic and static.
As an FS newbie, it seems my only option is to enter the generic URL into the new Source and use the Notes field to guide the reader to the relevant data and image.
Is there a better way?
Best Answer
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Looks like a great site. But I see what you mean. There does not appear to be any way to generate a URL to jump directly to a search result that I can see either. Maybe someone else here will get creative and find some easy way to get right to the result.
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Answers
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If you post a specific example from this site and explain how to get to the viewer and the information you want to link to someone familiar with the site or interested in exploring it might find a creative way to create a source for a particular piece of information.
Post the url of the site, how to get to what you want to source, and a screen shot so people will know when they get to the right spot.
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Go to https://www.mariettaga.gov/489/Online-Maps and click on the "City Cemetery Map" icon. You are now leaving the last static URL and entering the Viewer (which seems to fail constantly on weekends).
If the Viewer does appear, its full URL is https://secure.mariettaga.gov/Html5Viewer/index.html?configBase=https://secure.mariettaga.gov/Geocortex/Essentials/REST/sites/Cemetery/viewers/HTML5/virtualdirectory/Resources/Config/Default . An aerial photo of the cemetery will be displayed, with orange dots marking the graves.
In the toolbar just above the photo, click the "Search by" tool (you can use its drop-down arrow to select options other than "Name") and enter "Gates" in the Name field in the "Search by Name" pane. A list of names will appear as you type; you can select one, or you can click outside the list and click the Search button to include them all in the search results. (Note that the URL does not change to reflect the choice you made).
If asked "Do you want to see all names in this same plot?", click "No".
Click "Harry Gates" (first child of Alice M[artha LACY] Gates), who died at the age of 8 years old. The map will scroll to his gravesite, which will be circled in blue.
Unlike the survey of this cemetery (which is incomplete) made by the Atlanta History Center, not all of the text on the headstone is recorded. However, the details listed appear to have been read by a person who went on-site (although I have spotted an incorrect headstone and incorrect plots).
One or more photos of Harry's headstone will be available at the bottom of the details list.
Selecting another person from the list reveals that the URL does not change.
I asked Marietta's GIS department if their data is restricted in any way and they said - to their knowledge - it is not. So I may be able to use the photos in the FamilySearch Source I create, but they may be weathered beyond recognition (see above).
I think I'll have to include a short list of steps on how to reach each of these Sources directly.
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That behaviour seems quite common in my experience. Whether with subscription or free-to-view websites, I regularly end up on the site Home page when trying to reuse the link I believed would connect me to a specific page I'd found on the website.
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The problem with this behavior is that even a minor tweak to the website design invalidates the instructions we provide. Anyway, here's what I did (I particularly appreciated the "Reason This Source Is Attached"):
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Hmm. That was my first post. I'm not really keen about re-ordering the questions and answers. The conversation is now in 1-3-4-2-5-6 order, putting the burden on future readers to figure out who's responding to what. I think simply shading the answer in green is a much cleaner solution, FamilySearch.
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That reordering of the answers after you mark one is strange and has been complained about on and off. It really doesn't make sense in a conversation.
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