Help talk:MySource pages

How do you ?

• List and Manage MySources - would expect to do it from My Relate
• Update MySources - if I get a better copy of a birth certificate
• Delete a MySource

Ericblazek 23:33, 14 April 2007 (MDT)

Currently there are two ways to list MySource's:

• From within the Family Tree Explorer: launch the Family Tree Explorer, click on the "Index" tab, which is the 4th tab in the list of tabs about 2 inches from the top of the screen, then change the "Namespace" to MySource. This will give you a list of all MySource's in your tree.
• From your My Relate page, click on "Contributions", then change the "Namespace" to MySource. This shows all the edits you have made to MySource pages.

Having said this, it would be nice to make it easier to manage MySources from your MyRelate page. I'll add this to the list of enhancements we'll make.

To create a MySource page, enter "MySource:your user name/name of the source" (e.g., "MySource:Ericblazek/John Townsend Birth Certificate") in the Title input box of a source on a Person or Family page. Then save the Person or Family page, click on the red link for the MySource, and click on the "Edit" button to create the MySource page. To update a MySource, again click on the link to navigate to the MySource page and click on the "Edit" button to edit it.

To delete a MySource page, click on the link to navigate to the MySource page, and click on the "Delete" button to delete it.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions.--Dallan 13:00, 16 April 2007 (MDT)

Converting MySources to Community Sources [3 October 2007]

Is there a way to convert a "MySource" item to a "Community" source without retyping the information? Is it as simple as changing the title? I have a lot of sources (mostly books) that should really be community sources.--Jeff 11:43, 3 October 2007 (EDT)

Although converting to new namespaces is on the "to do" list, it will be a while. We are very occupied with the match/merge function at the moment. If you would like to add the information to the Source list, you will need to create new Source pages and cut and paste the information. Then go to the MySource page and in the edit box type "#redirect [[Source:name of the page]]" if you want to link the pages. However, if you redirect, you won't be able to access the MySource page anymore, it will automatically go to the new source page. Sorry for the trouble, thanks for your patience.--sq 13:24, 4 October 2007 (EDT)

Converting from MySource to Source and deleting MySources [23 December 2008]

(moved from the water cooler by jillaine 14:16, 20 November 2008 (EST))

I just read most of the help pages that I could find for sources and didnt find anything that adressed my questions. When I uploaded my trees from my FTM files via gedcoms, all the sources were automatically made into MySources. Some of them seem to fall into the category of sources that should go in Sources, for example a family history book that was used as a reference. Is there some way to transfer a source from MySource to Source so that all the references to it stay valid? Would a redirect work for this?

Some of my "sources" are FTM files that were used to move people around between files. I have an old version of FTM and big files with huge numbers of sources so I can't delete these junk sources from my FTM files, so they got uploaded to WeRelate. If I delete a junk page will all the references to it disappear or do I have to manually delete them from every page?--Bevbh 03:08, 18 November 2008 (EST)

I am not aware of an easy method of cleaning up your sources after a gedcom upload. You probably have numerous duplicate citations also. I first delete all of the duplicate citations. Then I manually cnange the my source to source and complete the appropriate fields for the source citation. Sometimes there is already a source page and sometimes it is necessary to create a new source. After I change all of the citations for that particular mysource page and nothing is linked to the mysource page, I delete it.--Beth 08:46, 18 November 2008 (EST)

Hi Bevbh... a redirect won't work (unless Dallan has changed this recently). MySource and Source are two different namespaces and as far as I know you can't redirect from one namespace to the other. The only exception I know of is redirecting from a Source to a Repository. You can try a redirect, but I believe you'll get an error message. No harm done though.

Secondly, deleting a MySource page does not delete all the references to it. Doing so will just create red links, so unfortunately, as Beth pointed out, you will have to change every reference manually. If you choose to make or link to a Source page in place of the MySource page, clicking on What links here under the More heading at the top of the page can assist you in finding the references to the MySource page you are wanting to change.

--Ronni 09:27, 18 November 2008 (EST)

It sounds like conversion of MySources to Sources after a Gedcom upload might fall under the Source Review activities. Afterall, generation of Source pages that are actually used by someone rather than sorting through an automatically collected link set would seem to give a better return on time invested. So, you (Bevbh) might go to WeRelate talk:Source review and ask for assistance in the conversion. In fact, if consensus there agrees, one could start 'project subpages' spawned from the Source review page to cover such "small" source review projects. Thoughts? --ceyockey 19:44, 18 November 2008 (EST)

So this raises an issue that uploading GEDCOMs should address somehow.

There should be REALLY good "Before you Upload" directions that include:

• something that addresses the privacy issue so that information about living people is not uploaded.
• checking your sources for any *.FTM or *.GED sources, and changing the master source name for such so that they say something like "GEDCOM as contributed by [Cousin Darcy] on [date]" (or something like that).
• Rename master sources so that they align with WeRelate naming convention.

We'd all save a lot of time if these kinds of things (much of which can be done globally) are done BEFORE the upload; they're much more difficult to change after the upload.

My $.02

jillaine 21:49, 18 November 2008 (EST)

Add to the list not including people's addresses and phone numbers, which I have seen a few cases of.

My $.02 would be to outlaw "something like 'GEDCOM as contributed by ....'" on the grounds that it doesn't have any foundation: it is merely that person's assertion and it is not even easily accessible to other people to verify. If you are going to reference somebody's GEDCOM, ideally you should include what it is that makes this source more than an opinion, as in, "according to so-and-so's GEDCOM, she referred to as Jane Doe in her father's will dated 1 Jan 1645". This at least provides a basis for thinking there is a fact that can be verified, and a resourceful researcher can then track that down, and eventually they will update the page with a reference to the real thing. It is fine to accept a GEDCOM into one's own file as a working hypothesis, but the mere fact that somebody typed it into a genealogy program and generated a GEDCOM means nothing without additional basis, and publishing it, I think, amounts to spreading genealogical rumors.

Of course (truth in advertising), I would be one of those stubborn few that argue for outlawing GEDCOM uploads altogether. In the steady state, where the data is mature, there will be lots of existing data and little new data imported by each GEDCOM, and it demonstrates a certain amount of commitment if a user is willing to type it in by hand (or cut and paste) item by item, rather than uploading only to lose interest.

--Jrich 22:27, 18 November 2008 (EST)

Add my $.02 to yours. Now we have $.04.--Beth 21:32, 19 November 2008 (EST)

You can't rename a MySource page as a Source page, but you can replace the text of the MySource page with a #redirect [[Source:source page title]], which will automatically redirect links to the Source page. So you have to find a corresponding Source page or create a new one first, then redirect the MySource page to it. Renaming the MySource page is a good idea though; I'll add it to the todo list.

Matching GEDCOM sources to existing Source pages during a GEDCOM upload is something that's been talked about, and I think it's a good idea. It just takes time (a fair amount of time) to implement.

I'd be happy to add a "before you upload" instruction section to the GEDCOM upload page. Would someone like to move these ideas into a disucssion on Help talk:GEDCOM and begin elaborating on them?

I started drafting things over at Help talk:GEDCOM -- jillaine 15:19, 19 November 2008 (EST)

I'm really hoping that before the end of the year I have integrated showing duplicates and merging / linking to existing pages into the GEDCOM upload process. I think we have to do this before we promote WeRelate in a big way. Hopefully this will alleviate the issues we're now facing with merging people.--Dallan 00:12, 19 November 2008 (EST)

Just for clarification and to ensure that I'm not passing along bad info, I thought a rename was just a redirect with a twist. So, we can redirect to a different target namespace, but not rename. Is this good for all namespaces or just Source/Mysource? I thought I remembered a situation where we were having trouble redirecting to another namespace, for instance an article to a person page, so we were having to delete and then recreate the page. --Ronni 13:10, 19 November 2008 (EST)

A redirect allows you to point to an already-existing page, whereas with a rename a page with the new name doesn't typically exist. I don't as a general rule allow redirects to other namespaces, but it's easy for me to add exceptions.--Dallan 00:19, 24 December 2008 (EST)

• • REDIRECT WORKED !!! ** Thank you Dallan.--Bevbh 19:23, 19 November 2008 (EST)

Need a MySource -> Source Merge Tool Next [16 July 2017]

While a "before you upload" set of instructions will help diminish the need or this MOVING FORWARD, in the meantime, there are what? HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of "MySource" pages that really should be "Source" pages.

As I understand it (see above), for each "My Source" that I convert to a "Source", I need to then go through each page that sites the old MySource source and manually change each citation. Let's use just one example of mine:

"MySource:Jillaine/Hausen_ob_Verena_(Tuttlingen)_Evangelische_Kirche"

[2017 follow up - link to MySource page above has been removed to allow for complete deletion of the MySource page. All citations that used to link to it have been converted to link directly to the appropriate Source page instead, Source:Hausen ob Verena, Württemberg, Germany. Kirchenbuch, 1742-1879 and the multiple redirects that had been created are being cleared as well. - --cos1776 00:40, 17 July 2017 (UTC)]

If I select MORE: What Links Here, I get this:

[| Long Hairy Ugly List]

So we need something that does something like this:

1. "Convert MySource to Source"

This examines all of my sources and compares them to what's in Source, and comes up with a list of possible matches. I select the one that is correct.

2. Change all citations from MySource to Source

The tool then looks for all pages that pointed to the old MySource page.

I probably still have to go through this one at a time, but the tool will help me do it. It would bring up:

a) the fact being cited (birth or marriage or whatever) b) the citation as it was c) a blank citation form for me to fill out (which will be the revised citation now linking to the Source page instead of the MySource page.

I'm *guessing* that the bulk of what I'll have to do is copy and paste data from one form to the other, but at least this would help me do it in a systematic and consistent way.

Am I nuts? I mean, you created the MATCH/MERGE tool. it's kinda similar.

Respectfully,

jillaine 14:28, 20 November 2008 (EST)

I agree that matching Sources in your GEDCOM to existing Source pages is important, although not as important I think as matching people in your GEDCOM to existing people. I'm thinking about how to make matching GEDCOM MySources to community Sources as part of GEDCOM upload.--Dallan 00:19, 24 December 2008 (EST)

Something wrong with my redirect - please advise [14 March 2009]

I'm working on redirecting my more obvious MySources to appropriate Source pages (and renaming the latter if they're not following the current naming convention). But my redirect isn't working and i've gone over it and over it and can't see the problem.

http://www.werelate.org/wiki/MySource:Jillaine/Vital_Records_of_Mendon%2C_Massachusetts_to_1850

Thanks! -- jillaine 13:57, 8 March 2009 (EDT)

You learn something new every day. Apparently redirects don't work if the wiki links contain '%nn' sequences. I replaced the %2C sequences with commas and the redirect worked. To avoid getting the %nn sequences, you can copy and paste the page title for the link instead of the URL.--Dallan 00:50, 15 March 2009 (EDT)