Links in "Utah, Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel Database" are broken

Alan E. Brown

In the collection "Utah, Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel Database 1847-1868," there are links back to the Church History Biographical Database hosted on the Church History website. These links used to work, as I have followed many such links successfully in the past. But as near as I can tell, all those links are broken. They take you into the Church History Biographical Database, but not to the relevant person. Here are some examples:

Eliza Hookway KWNJ-227:

• Overland Travel record for Eliza Hookway
• Link goes to https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/chd/individual/32961
• Should go to https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/chd/individual/eliza-hookway-1836

Emma Sanders KWNC-MSV:

• Overland Travel record for Emma Sanders
• Link goes to https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/chd/individual/4082
• Should go to https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/chd/individual/emma-sanders-1841

I could supply many more, but those show the problem. It appears that the Church History Department changed its URL scheme from using numeric identifiers to using identifiers based on the name of the pioneer. But FamilySearch has not yet adapted to that change. It would be helpful if those links could once again go to the correct person.

SerraNola

@Alan E. Brown The Search Results link redirects to the landing page without using any identifiers. I'm not sure if anyone is aware of the change but I will bring it to their attention. Thanks for reporting.

Alan E. Brown

@SerraNola In my experience, the links do use the numeric identifiers; when I examine the URL in my browser's address bar, I see the numeric ID. But because the current URL pattern no longer uses the numbers, the result is that you end up on the landing page.

So the effect for the user is the same as if there were no identifier, but I just wanted to clarifier that an ID is included on the URL for the link on the record details page.

SerraNola

Yes, I saw that on Record Details, but there is no identifier in the link from Search Results. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/record/results?count=100&q.surname=r%2A&f.collectionId=2517340

Search link goes to the default page and record details link says there was no matching person (number) found. This is what I will report on Monday.

Alan E. Brown

@SerraNola

Even from the Search Results, there is an outdated attempt to use an identifier to go to a particular pioneer record on the Church History site.

For example, from the Search Results page you provided, the first hit is Elizabeth Reese.

Clicking on the circled Image button goes to

history.lds.org/overlandtravels/pioneerDetail?pioneerId=35813?view=index

The reference to lds.org shows that this is quite out of date, but the query parameter "pioneerId=35813" shows that this URL is attempting to go to a record for a particular person. (As a side note, this URL has two question marks, which is invalid, but that's the only one I found with this problem; that spurious "?view=index" is odd but doesn't really affect the rest of the analysis.)

Anyway, that URL redirects to this one (which still preserves the identifier):

history.churchofjesuschrist.org/overlandtravels/pioneerDetail?pioneerId=35813?view=index

Which then redirects to:

history.churchofjesuschrist.org/chd/landing

That is the final redirect, and as you can see, no longer contains an identifier. All this redirection happens on the Church website, so it is not under the control of FamilySearch, but nonetheless, the URL FamilySearch chose to begin with is indeed under its control. It would appear that the Church History site is trying to do helpful redirects, but because it no longer supports the numeric pioneerId parameters, it finally just bails and goes to the generic landing page.

So I would clarify your statement "there is no identifier in the link from Search Results" to state "although there is an identifier in the link from Search Results, because it uses an outdated URL pattern, by the time all the redirects are handled, you end up on the default landing Church History Biographical Database landing page, with no person identifier in the final URL."