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Web link as a source

Jarmo Niemelä

November 07, 2019 11:04

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It seems to me that Geni only allows documents as sources. Even when I use the "Post a New Link" tab from Add Documents, Geni tries to download a document. If there is no document to download, Geni saves a screen capture of that page in PNG format.

I would like to use web links as such as sources. If the source is a document available from a public website, why should I download it to Geni when it can be accessed through a link?

Of course, web links can be added to profile's Overview and Timeline tabs, but this isn't their main purpose, is it?

5 comments

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  Frode Evensen November 07, 2019 15:02

  A web link can be a great source in itself, while working with genealogy. But when creating a family tree with an archive that future generations will use, a web link will probably be changed or broken/dead.

  One report I came across showed the state of broken links:
  “After looking at over 63,492 total website pages on 135 websites, a total of 13,142 broken links were found.”
  https://siteimprove.com/en/blog/broken-links-on-135-us-fortune-company-websites/

  And this is after only a few years of Internet. After 50-100 years, most links will probably (but hopefully not) be broken.

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  Bjørn P. Brox November 07, 2019 15:29

  Jarmo: Have you checked the obvious link at the document page:

  The only fault in Geni is that you cannot edit this link, but links in the document description does also work and can be updated.

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  Jarmo Niemelä November 08, 2019 09:42

  Frode: Good point. Link rot is a world wide (web) problem. However, some documents cannot be (legally) copied to Geni. For example familysearch.org forbids posting content from their site on another website or on a computer network without their permission. In this case linking is the only option, or maybe use a text-only citation and let the reader seacrh for the original document.

  Bjørn: I found a satisfactory solution. Create a new text document, write the source citation in the document content, and put the link to the document description. Even better would be if web addresses in text documents could be automatically turned into clickable links as is done in document descriptions.

  Also, when I open a text document, it is by default presented with "Word Wrap Off". In my opinion "Word Wrap On" would be better.

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  Leif Anders Bälter October 28, 2023 08:19

  You are discussing something that has been a Geni issue for me for many years. There is a Source Tab. But Geni requires a document in PDF format Why?
  For me a source is a link to the Churchbook where I found the family names, dates etc.
  In my Geny tree I have written (or copy/pasted) the link in the Overview Tab

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  Jarmo Niemelä October 28, 2023 09:13

  I too have used mostly the Overview tab for the list of sources and links. As text they are easy to edit and use very little storage space.