Ancestry's good vs bad links
Today was a good example of what I discovered. This cousin added on September 14.
Erratic bad link, more often than not.
https://search. ancestry.com/ collections/9061/records/2974777
Good link
https://www. ancestry.com/ discoveryui-content/view/2598442:9061
I had to go into my own Ancestry account to get the good link one to change in FamilySearch sources.
Need to include instructions on proper copying of links?
Answers
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Another area to consider when copying Ancestry links - duplicates of ones already within the FamilySearch records
I had to delete Ancestry links because they were links to same records already within the FamilySearch datasets. (not a loop, but identical records in Ancestry, rendering it unnecessary to have duplicates.)
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@@W D Samuelsen contact me please John Selfer's 1816 will appears to not be in FamilySearch.
I hope when you delete Ancestry links you make sure the FamilySearch duplicate source is not in restricted images. When I am at the LDS Church where I do research, I can't tell which image set is restricted. That little lock symbol never appears while I am on their network. Can you tell? If you cannot, please don't remove any more Ancestry sources as it will put some researchers at a disadvantage if the FamilySearch image is restricted. When duplicate sources exist in FamilySearch and Ancestry and I know the FS version is a restricted image I add the Ancestry shared link duplicate on purpose for the rest of us who are not LDS but have an Ancestry account. I also add the Ancestry shared link if I'm not sure. This would be because I haven't looked at the restricted images at the Church yet.
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@Gail Swihart Watson If I'm logged in to the FS portal using Chrome, I also keep a window open in Firefox. That way I can easily check to see if a record is restricted.
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I'm NOT talking about that one.
I am referring to sources such as censuses that are already inline at FamilySearch and free, why listing the Ancestry links to the same requiring non-members of Ancestry to pay subscription to see the same thing?
Probate records, too. Ancestry borrowed a lot of probate records from FamilySearch and still require subscription to the same records that are free at FamilySearch, so why list twice (copy within FamilySearch for free and copy within Ancestry for subscription fee for non-members of Ancestry)
Then there's the "external links" from within FamilySearch which is a completely separate matter, instructions have to be listed clearly on how to link properly. I've had to fix these links lately.
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And yes that will is in FamilySearch under the state collection, not at county level.
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I think the most they could do is have a bot check if the link works or not, and even that probably wouldn't work. Aside from bot detection that could kick it out and cause it to falsely report a broken link, the bot wouldn't see anything wrong with this, since both links go somewhere.
Though to be honest, I'm also struggling to figure out what you're trying to say is wrong the link. One of the sources is seemingly better than the other, sure, but that's not the same thing as a bad link. It goes where it's supposed to, isn't that enough?
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BraydenGraves However WD got the "bad" link, the problem is the image isn't showing. All you have to do is click to a different person and then click back and a link to the image appears. Most people, including you, wouldn't think to do that or know to go to Ancestry and check. That's why the process which generated that link is flawed. Since he is here in FamilySearch with the complaint, I assume it is the Church version of Ancestry that is doing this.
W D Samuelsen contact me please The Ancestry link isn't to just the 1815 will. It is the 1816 probate record. If you scroll to the next page you see the Jones County court record for the May term 1816 where John is indicated deceased. Is the FamilySearch record you found ONLY the 1815 will or does it also include the 1816 declaration of death? If it is only the will then both sources would be acceptable to have and they would not be duplicates.
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@Gail Swihart Watson I must have done that on accident then. I was looking between the two records, so I guess that's how I didn't notice.
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Did you bother to read two different links I listed?
search and www
I see this problem almost every time. "Search" result in "Sorry,.... the page is not available" at Ancestry when you click on the link at FamilySearch - individual's source list.
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When I land on any of my folks, I always check the sources to clean up - missing date to put in chronological order, verify the sources are of that individuals, and in the process of verifying, I would discover some of Ancestry's links to images are already copy of the ones FamilySearch has already in their own. Sometimes 3 or more copies, not needed.
The Most GLARING one is "Millennium File" . It is a pillaged dataset from FamilySearch when it was Ancestral File before I caught the guy making mass copies of records from Ancestral Files years ago - around 2001 and reported. Investigation of this - led to the guy expelled because it was discovered he was selling the data to Ancestry (at the time different owners, not the present one, not the previous 2 owners, before them.)
Essentially "Millennium File" is full of gross errors.
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Oh, No WD, "Sorry, ... the page is not available" did not ever come up for either link. Both links went to a source. Next time you get that message, click refresh. It should clear it up.
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That is not only one. I did refreshing 3 times and it didn't so I went to my account home page and got in.
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I think the title of this thread is misleading. It's not an Ancestry problem; it's a user issue. I see plenty of supposed source URLs that are poorly composed, not just for a record on a single external website.
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I did, both links worked fine.
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not always.
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On three separate occasions I have clicked on each link at least 3 times. With 20+ clicks, I have had 100% success. Of course that's no guarantee that everyone will always have success, but in my experience both links are reliable.
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