Internet Sources

Showing Internet Sites as Sources

I recently decided to use the findagrave.com database as a secondary source on the Burial dates and places in my Ancestral Quest file. I had previously created an Other Event, which I called Cemetery Plot, to store the information I found in Find A Grave. When  Ancestral Quest version 14.00.14 was released, it suddenly dawned on me that I could actually cite and show the memorial page instead of just copying and storing that information in my Cemetery Plot event.

Why is this important?

The steps I am about to show you can be used to show any web page as the Image attached to a Source or a Citation of a Source. If you find a web page that documents an event, you can use that page directly. You don’t have to use Faststone, or some other screen capture program, to create an image which you then store on your hard drive. The web page can be used as the image for either the Source or the Citation. In my example, my Source is findagrave.com, and my Citation is the memorial for an individual. For my Source, I show the Search page of FindAGrave as the attachment. When I have a single page source, I place it as the attachment for the Source. When I have a multi-page source, I attach the page containing the information to the Citation. I then find a page, such as the Home page or the Search page as the attachment for the Source. The process is simple. Create your source as usual, by clicking on the S button. On either the Define Source page or the Source Citation page, click on the Attach… button. Go to your browser, and find the page you want to display. Copy the URL from the address bar at the top. Return to the Add Scrapbook Item page, and in the drop down window, select Other. This tells Ancestral Quest to not process this as a photo, video or sound-bite. Paste the URL in the Filename or URL window and click OK. To view the page, click the View button.

Show me how is it done!

When I originally added Cemetery Plot events to my records, I tagged those records. They now use tag # 3, the blue tag. I cleared all of the red tags from my file, and I went to my Name List view. This is the Name List that I created.

This list is sorted on Tag 3 (Descending) and Name (Ascending). This shows me all the people in my file who have a Cemetery Plot event in Name order. I included the Death/Burial Date and Death/Burial Place so that I wouldn’t waste my time trying to put sources where there was no known death. Now I want to find which of these records has an entry in findagrave.com. Fortunately, I have added Find A Grave to my favorite search sites. With a few clicks, I can search findagrave.com for the person in my currently selected (Highlighted) record. Note that my current record is Charlotte Louisa Durham. She has a Death/Burial Date and Death/Burial Place. She has a Cemetery Plot event tag, but she has  no FindAGrave Burial tag. I want to start by finding her in findagrave.com. With her record highlighted, I click on the Internet tab of the Menu bar.

Next I click on Search Favorite Sites….

 I have created three versions of searches for Find A Grave. I will use the one highlighted in blue. This will search for my record using only the first name found in the Given Names field, and either Surname or Maiden Name.  It also uses Birth/Christening and Death/Burial years if they are available. I click on the Perform Internet Search button.

Ancestral Quest sent my request to findagrave.com, and this is what they returned to me. I click on the underlined name, Bowen, Charlotte Louisa Durham and look at her memorial page.

This is the Charlotte I am looking for, but I want a URL which finds the record directly, and identifies the web page for me by memorial number. I don’t want to search with the criteria in the red box. I scroll down to the bottom of her memorial page.

 With the memorial number highlighted, I press Ctrl+C to copy it. Next I scroll back to the top of the page.

 Here I click on Begin New Search.

Now I paste the memorial number into the proper search box, and click on the Search button.

Now I have the URL I wanted. I highlight it, and use Ctrl+C to copy it. I go back to my Name List in Ancestral Quest, and I double click on Charlotte’s name there.

This is her Edit Individual screen. She has the Cemetery Plot event, which I no longer want to use. She has no Source attached to her Burial information, so I click on the S button to the right of the Burial Place. 

 We click on the Select button to get to the Select Source screen.

This is a list of Sources of type Internet. FindAGrave is the only Internet Type source on the list, so we select it.

We see a list of other citations entered previously. Each citation will have its own Vol/Page/Film value, so we click on the Create New Citation button to create one for Charlotte.

We enter FindAGrave as the first half of the Vol/Page/Film value, then we click on the Attach… button.

We open the drop down window, and select Other. We don’t want AQ to try to interpret this as a Photo or some other type of media.

 We right click and paste in the Filename or URL window, and immediately highlight the equal sign and the memorial number. We right click and copy this. We click on the OK button.

We right click to the right of the word FindAGrave in the Vol/Page/Film window and paste in the equal sign and the memorial number. We click OK to create the source and exit.

Now the Source button, S, has an asterisk, showing that there is a source for the Burial event. Return to Find A Grave in your browser, and use the red X to exit the browser. Go back to the Edit Individual screen, and click on the Source button for the Burial event.

When it comes up, click on the View button.

The findagrave.com page appears as a source. Go back to Charlotte’s Edit Individual screen.

The blue tag tells us that she has the Cemetery Plot event, but she needs a red tag to show that she has a Burial Source. Click on the Tags button. This brings up the Manage Tags screen.

Click the Set button and the Tag is created.

Charlotte’s record now shows the red Tag in the Name List.

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• Tagged: Ancestral Quest, Family Tree, FamilySearch, Genealogy, Genealogy Software, Incline Software, Internet, Source, Sources