A loyal viewer named Tamara asked, “Do you have a video about citations,
I get my sources from FamilySearch and when I put in on my tree on Ancestry I put a “web link” as a
source. Is there a better way to do this?” Howdy, welcome to Family History Fanatics.
If you are new here, my name is Devon Noel Lee, and I love helping people
find meaning and connections through their family trees. One way to do that
is to have an organized family tree on Ancestry. Experienced genealogists know the importance of
citing their sources. However, if you’re building your family tree on Ancestry,
Tamara’s asking, how do you add source citations that reference other websites?
There are several ways you can track citations for things that aren’t in
Ancestry’s record collection databases. Let’s go through a few options one by one.
Tamara mentioned weblinks. For those who don’t know about these,
discover how easy they are to add to a person's profile on Ancestry.
You can click on ADD Link at the bottom of a fact column or in the sources column.
On the Fact Tab, click on “Add.” In the drop-down menu, click on “Add web link.”
Paste a URL into the first field. Then give the link a name such as,
An Illustrated History of Southern California. Click “Add.”
Make sure you’re only inserting links to online records that do not already appear on Ancestry.
Otherwise, you’re just cluttering up your tree and you should know from previous videos that
I like reducing redundancy and unnecessary data. Now, if you click on this web link, it will take
you to that source that you provided the link for. As you can see, weblinks appear
pretty self-explanatory. They are links to websites.
But notice while it is a hyperlinked URL, you can not associate it with any facts on the timeline.
Additionally, you can add any details other a URL and the name.
Some people have used this feature to ‘save sources’ from elsewhere on the internet.
Others use this to link to blogs or websites that talk about the person
or relevant historical context. Still, others use this as a way
to bookmark resources to refer to later. Since the viewer wants to know if there’s
a better way to manage citations from other locations (including FamilySearch
but not likely not limited to that one), I will recommend not using weblinks for citations.
First, let’s make sure we’re all using the same terms. A genealogy source is a document,
article, book, individual, or other artifact that provides information
about a person, place, or relationship. Not every source is found on Ancestry. So,
to keep track of the sources you use to build your family tree,
you’ll want to attach a non-Ancestry sources. Now, while the viewer wanted to know about
FamilySsearch links, I'm actually going to attach a link from the Internet Archive, just to push you
towards utilizing other websites that don't necessarily have genealogy sources on them.
So, to add this source to this profile, what we need to do is to, come to the Person Profile Page
that we want to attach the link to. So this is John Colvin Newton
from the relative's profile page we're going to make sure that we're on the Fact tab .
In the Sources column, once again click the “Add” button.
Then we’re going to click “Add Source.” On the “Create Source Citation” page,
notice the first option is “ Where does this information or evidence come from?”
And it has a drop-down menu. If you open that, you’ll see
all the sources you’ve used for this tree. This list will differ from tree to tree.
Notice when I access my New Mexico Family Project it’s different. There are New Mexico
sources that th California tree didn’t have. This is not what we want if we’re bring citations
over from another website or off-line source. Instead, please click on the words
“Create a new source.” You can proceed to craft
a new source using this template: A title for your source is required.
Ancestry recommends that you use the “full name of the book, source record, census index, etc.”
For this entry, we’re going to use “An Illustrated History of [Southern California].”
I’m just going to copy and paste this over into my Ancestry template.
Next, notice the author field. Ancestry says this can be a person,
persons, or an organization. Not every field applies to the
sources you are creating citations for. It’s okay to leave something blank.
In this case, the illustrated history book does not have an author, instead it has a publisher.
The Lewis Publishing Company I’ll skip this field, and add that later.
Right here in fact. Publishers includes
printing companies, universities, or other organizations that produce books.
Again, not all sources have publishers. If you have a publisher, please proceed to add the
location and the date to the appropriate fields. Finish filling out the remaining fields.
You can save your work at any time and come back to edit it by
Clicking “Save.” And now you see the title you’ve created.
But let’s say you need to add the repository. We’re going to go ahead and “Edit this source.”
And come down, to select a repository.
A repository is the location where the source was found. This can be a library,
archive, website, or even a person. Unfortunately, I don't have the repository
of the Internet Archive here. So, what I need to do is click “Create a New Repository link.”
This form, again, is fairly self-explanatory,
except when you have an online location. That the only thing I can add right now
is that it's the Internet Archive. I could go to the internet Archive and
try to find its “About” page to find the other relevant details here. But for now, I’m going
to Click “Save Repostiory” and call it good. So I have the title. the published information,
the repository. Click “Save Source.”
Now we’re back at the “Create Source Citation Information” form.
Now, you have a master source that you can use for anyone in your family tree
that also appears in this reference. Next, you’ll complete this form for the
specific entry within the source that you found. Before we continue, if I have given you value
during this video, please click the like button, share this video with others and leave a comment.
As Ancestry suggests, the citation details in section 2 of this form answers the question,
“What are the specifics of the information or evidence provided by this source?”
In other words, if you source is a book, a citation references a specific entry
and page number within the book. First, we should add the details.
Perhaps you have a newspaper article. You’ll insert the newspaper article title here.
For birth certificates, you’ll name the specific person within a birth
record collection that you’re consulting. In this case, I’m accessing a Biographical
Sketch for Luther Harvey Titus on page 76-78 and this reference number on this item.
So I can add that information. Biographical Sketch for Luther Harvey Titus page 766-768
The remaining fields are also optional for your use.
In my case, adding a second publication date seems redundant, so I’ll skip that.
I could add a transcription of text here. Ancestry allows for cut-and-pasting of text.
If I don't do a full transcription, I can also do abstracting information as well
Finally, I can add a specific URL reference. So I can copy it from the URL bar.
And then place it here. Genealogy sources often provide
information about specific events and biographical details. If your source relates to any of the
options you’ve already added to the profile, you can select the relevant facts in section 3.
In this case, I have the birth. It pertains to Hulda, the wife's name actually.
Tthe year of marriage. As well as some residence information.
Then I can go ahead and click ‘Submit.’ If you haven’t added an event or fact
mentioned in your source, you can save that entry like I just did. Then, go and add one
of the facts to the profile. Once you have saved that fact, you can click the edit field
and then attach the sources to that fact or event.
No matter what non-Ancestry source you have discovered,
you can add those citations to Ancestry in the fashion I just showed you.
HOWEVER, since the viewer asked about taking sources from FamilySearch to
Ancestry, there MIGHT be an easier way. If you’re a member of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints and you have a member’s account on Ancestry, you’ll notice
these FamilySearch icons on your profile. If you click on that, you have to sign in.
Once you're signed in, you can compare persons on FamilySearch then scroll down
to the sources section. And you can click and migrate those sources from FamilySearch over.
I’ve mentioned how to do that in a previous video. Otherwise, leverage genealogy software,
such as RootsMagic, to transfer your citations from FamilySearch
to Ancestry. I have mentioned how to migrate data from one site to the other in this video.
So there you have it. That’s how you add non-Ancestry
citations to the Ancestry family tree. If you have other questions on how to use
Ancestry.com, be sure put them in the comments sections. Or send them to me using the Family
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