I can't add sources

Michael,

I really believe your profile is buggy and needs to be fixed by help@geni.com (or the link at the bottom of the page). Alternately you can post on the forums to see if others have the same problem:

http://forum.geni.com/

I've been using sources and it's pretty awesome. You do need to add a document first, back up to the profile, and then go to the source tab to associate the document as a source.

Hmm .... have you tried adding a document?

Ah, I see. You can't add a source unless you first add a document. Not very intuitive, but it seems to work.

Yay! I know how frustrating that must have felt.

The forums have a thread requesting geni enhance documenting sources to make it one step, you should add your voice to it:

"Add source on demand"
http://forum.geni.com/topic.php?id=69131

They'll get there.

What if the source is not something that you can add? A book, a website, a gravestone, a tape, a conversation? How does this make sense?

best,
george

George,

If it's in electronic format, it can be added as a text document, image file (photograph), video, audio file (mp3), or a pointer to an existing website. So I'm not sure what you're asking.

I've added a couple of sources that are not amenable to entering; I've chosen to scan the front pages of the book, or other appropriate identifying information, and upload that - this serves to identify what I'm talking about, but doesn't get us into hot water with copyright and all that.

Erica,

Many sources are NOT available in electronic format, for example a gravestone from which information has been gleaned and then the stone has been destroyed (most on my families gravestones in Hlinik, Slovakia- the graveyard is even called "the ruins" by those who live there), an unrecorded conversation with a family member who is now deceased of in a coma, a page of a manuscript written in the middle ages which cannot be scanned or photographed, etc. or even a document that is no longer extant. And does it make sense that if someone wants to refer to a source, he/she has to have something in digital format?

george

Harald,

I am not saying that one cannot find workarounds to get something in electronic format; I am saying that it is not sensible to demand it.

best,
george

Hi,

Michael's original post is much the same. I know about the contents of a will, but I don't have a copy of the will and cannot get it in electronic format. I know about a birth certificate that was destroyed in a fire or otherwise.

best
george

George,

It's the same issue any historian faces. You can't put a gravestone in the pages of a book, so you take a photograph, which is then scanned into an electronic file and added to the other electronic files that comprise the book. You make a tape recording of a conversation with a relative, and then transcribe it to type pages, which are converted to a file, and published.

In the cases where hard evidence is no longer available, you do the same things any historian would do: find someone who can attest to it. In the days before birth certificates people would bring a witness before a judge to verify births. The clerk would write down this testimony, and *that* record becomes the written source.

Emails from eye witnesses describing the one time cemetery in Slovakia would make a valid source document. A description of the un-scannable medieval manuscript, including time and date of when it was examined and where it was seen, would be acceptable to historians, and therefore a valid source document. You could make notes about a phone conversation you had with a now deceased relative years ago: that document is a valid source document. (Even more valid if several others can also attest, "Yes, he said that.")

The idea behind sourcing is that someone else can walk in your footsteps; it is validating evidence for any assumptions you make or conclusions you draw. The problem you face is not the format, it is the historian's dilemma. You can make your claims without backup evidence. But then no one else can ever agree with certainty.

Erica,

I understand and accept what you say. We do the best we can to document family history as any other history. But we should not need to scan a document into geni to list a citation. We should be able to refer to something outside Geni, on another website, in a book , in a play, in a museum or anywhere. The magic of the web is that we are not tied down to one program alone.

best,
george

I agree that citing an outside source such as a play, website, museum exhibit is part of the magic of the web. I see no reason that can't be done on this platform.

You would "create a new document" and put in the referring book citation or whatever. In fact there is a tab in "create a document" where all you add is the URL, and there's your entire document.

Then you go to the "source" tab to associate the document with the fact you're verifying.

For example:

MacBeth's profile
fact: place of residence - Scotland
source: Shakepeare's Hamlet, as performed by the Little Theatre Company, New York, NY, approx March 1999

ok that works, but I understood from Michael's original email that he could not do that.

of course the source you use is odd. why is the source a particular performance and not the play (all all performances)?

thank you, Erica

Hi George,

I wasn't being very serious about my source and I'm sorry if it confused you.

How about we take a real example. A few months ago, I saw the singer / songwriter Loudon Wainwright lll in performance, and he has a public profile on geni.com here: Loudon Snowden Wainwright, III

Now let's say I had edit rights to that profile (which I don't), and I wanted to document this "live" performance.

Here is the URL to the performance (in the past):
http://www.rmanyc.org/events/load/557

I would do this:

1. "Add documents" button
2. "Post a new link" tab
3. Copy and paste the URL
4. "Upload document" button
5. "Quick edit" to create notes (date, profiles, locations)

I then back out to the profile page and select the "sources" tab.

1. "Add source" link
2. Select the document
3. Associate the facts fields relevant and available (First name, Last Name, Current Location)

I can go further and on the "profile" page, upload an MP3 file of his music using the "video" link.

I can go further still and on the "profile" page, upload a photograph file from the performance I had previously downloaded.

Is it making more sense now?

Best,
Erica

Erica, have access to edit Loudon Snowden Wainwright, III, updated the profile and added more of that family.

Well done. The family is so talented. I'm playing some Lucy Wainwright Roche right now.

Hi Erica,

I was going to say that it makes more sense, but before I wrote, I decided to try it out with a real example. First I decided to enter the reference to a book of poems that I wrote called At the Foot of Sinai published in 1967. After doing a Google search, (as I expected) I did not find any reference to it since unfortunately it was not a best seller and is out of print. So unless I find a hard copy and scan part of the book, there is no way to enter the source. Or am I mistaken?

Since I could not do that, I decided to try to enter one of my great-uncle, Arthur Linksz's books. I googled him and found an obituary which i uploaded using your directions. But i searched further and found a book review of one of his books Physiology of the Eye, Vol 2 (he was an ophthalmologist). I then tried to add the source per your instructions and found that none of the facts that i could document included either book review or obituary. I chose occupation although this was inaccurate and would not be particularly helpful to another family member.

The documentation of the source was free format, which meant that I could enter anything, and was not required to use any standard guide (such as the MLA).

But I was still unable to document my book or my great-uncle's book.

So you, Erica, are making lots of sense, but I still have my problems with Geni.

best,
george

Hi George,

You can find pretty much any book ever published through the "super library" site, http://www.worldcat.org. It's a consortium of libraries worldwide.

So I went there, entered the book title, and found results:

http://www.worldcat.org/title/at-the-foot-of-sinai/oclc/2583643

It is in 21 libraries including my local New York Public Library.

Now another neat aspect to the OCLC site is that you can create instant citations from the results page. There's an icon in the upper right that says, "Cite/Export." Click that, select your format (MLA), and I get this -- which I just copied and pasted into this message:

Farkas, George. At the Foot of Sinai. Hillel poetry series, no. 1. Montreal: B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation at McGill University, 1967. Print.

So there's your citation. For use in geni, the "add facts" fields are currently vital statistics only (birth, death, etc.). But there are plenty of other places to use the citation, including the free form narrative "overview" tab (that's the one I use most often).

Hope this helps.

P.S. In my citation I would also include the referring URL (the worldcat.org address). Never hurts to advertise. :)

Thank you, Erica,

You are as great source of information. Not to mention that I did not know that my book was in the New York Public Library.

I don't like using the overview tab (and I use it too) because using it makes it difficult to compare with other researchers' information, to have a much more complete collaboration process.

We need a good standard for information used in genealogy and family history. And I am helping create that standard through XGenML and Open Gen.

best,
george

By the way, Erica, is there a site that you or anyone else knows of that lists all the information held by cemeteries about people buried there. It would be less info than on the gravestone or on findagrave, but it would enable people to know or confirm in which cemetery someone is buried.

best,
george

1. Findagrave.com seems like the best service for cemetery / person lookups, with a large and active volunteer corps contributing daily.

2. For the US, the USGenWeb project (separate sites by state) has some good cemetery transcriptions done, but it's fragmentary, of course.

3. For Jewish records specifically, the volunteers at http://www.jewishgen.org are extraordinary. I queried on the "Gottesman" family (my mother's maiden name) and was hooked up, within two days, with a wonderful "family" member who walked me through resources and histories, and someone with a DNA project and surname database. Between the two I was able to eliminate a lot of false positives and come up with a working theory on the name and origins.

I like the idea of XML standards for genealogical research but disagree very much about the use of the overview tab. I am not much interested in dry listings from a database: it's necessary, needed for vital statistics and proper citations, but ultimately, a big snooze to me.

I like quirky, original and mashed up free text shown in "the overview" tab just fine. It's far more democratic and the *only* way to address the "oral history" component to genealogy.

Hi Erica,

I wonder if it is so difficult to get all cemeteries to agree to send information to an international repository. I am sure that they get lots of questions from genealogists and other interested persons that they would not get otherwise creating a lot of extra unnecessary work for them. The point is that it should not be fragmentary. I will check the US GenWeb project.

Findagrave.com is great for what it does, but as far as i can see, it does not do very much if at all anything that touches any part of my family.

You're right about the great work done by JewishGen volunteers. I owe most of my family's information to people i found via JewishGen.

XML standards for genealogical research would cover all the "dry" stuff, including vital statistics, migration information, employment information, enable information listed in one language to be looked up and investigated in another language, but would not eliminate free text, quirkiness, stories etc. I have serious doubts whether the overview tab is the right place for that, but that's a different question. Oral history, stories, family folklore and traditions all have their place.

best,
george

Agree about the XML standard and its use for databasing.

The "international cemetery repository" idea is a nice one but sounds like an enormous undertaking. Perhaps something can be done as a spyder to stitch together current website listings, but that wouldn't begin to touch private family burying grounds and records kept by funerals homes, just as an example.

Is your concern Jewish cemeteries in particular? That would be international in scope of course. To me it sounds like something JewishGen might be interested in getting involved with.

George,

There is a JewishGen project on cemeteries already:

http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/cemetery/
The JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR) is a database of more than 1.3 million names and other identifying information from cemeteries and burial records worldwide, from the earliest records to the present.

Hi Erica,

My personal need is for Jewish Cemetery records but I think in terms that help others as well. Therefore my idea of an "international cemetery repository". Even if we forget about all cemetery records to date and starting now all cemeteries would keep their records in a standardized fashion, future generations would have the records without a need to transcribe from gravestones that have begun to degenerate. Ok, at least they would have a good start. Cemeteries keep records. Doing this according to a standard on the web (the cloud) would make these records far more useful.

I had another look at the JewishGen project which although it is in no way complete needed so much work and was at a huge cost. Why not minimize the cost and the work?

Thank you for reminding me of that cemetery project.

and I just went back to the JewishGen project on cemeteries to remind me of the project.

Well, I would build on an existing resource. I'm sure JewishGen is not covering all Jewish cemeteries as yet, but they have a good structure in place, including the international scope (and volunteers I presume). So perhaps see what their needs are and work on how to expand it through that organization.

I will speak to them.

best,
george