Wikipedia talk:External links/Perennial websites

Ancestry.com again

The section on Ancestry.com contains these claims: (1) The Ancestry.com website content is user-submitted and is therefore considered not to be generally reliable. (2) Ancestry.com does not exercise editorial control, material added to the site by volunteers does not have editorial oversight and is not vetted (see WP:QS). I am extremely familiar with this web site, and I know that both of these claims are false. Ancestry contains two types of material. One type (by an extremely large margin, the bulk of all material) consists of copies of official records, such as birth, marriage, death and immigration records obtained from governments, baptismal records from churches, lists of graves from published sources, etc. The other type of material is user-contributed, and is kept separate. Subscribers get their own workspace where they can construct a family tree, upload photos, etc.. Subscribers have the choice of whether to make their workspace visible to other subscribers. So it is often possible to see other subscribers' material on a person of interest, but it is always possible to see that it comes from another subscriber rather than from an official record. Without a doubt, the subscriber-contributed material can't be considered reliable, but the official documents are as reliable as official documents usually are. Using the latter involves the usual problems of working with primary sources, especially the difficulty of making a positive identification of the person each record is about. (An anecdote: I thought Ancestry's DNA program was a stunt until I discovered a relative who had been adopted at birth and didn't know who her birth family was. True story.) Zero^talk 14:53, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Zero0000, being correct is not the same as being reliable. You’ll have to get the consensus at WP:RS/N and overturn what is written here: wp:ANCESTRY.COM (and that something has an own redirect under WP:RS does mean something). Yes, it is sometimes usable as a primary source, but secondary sources are preferred. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:12, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

@Beetstra:, the description at wp:ANCESTRY.COM is correct already. I wrote here because the description here contradicts the description at wp:ANCESTRY.COM. Looking at the various discussions at WP:RS/N, I see the few people who understand Ancestry being drowned out by people making false assertions such as (1) and (2) above. What I'm getting at is not about reliability; it is about whether a website should be described accurately or inaccurately. Zero^talk 08:29, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Belatedly, agreeing fully with Zero0000. The bulk of material at Ancestry.com is official records which are primary sources. It is extremely misleading to categorise the entire site as "user-generated" when a great deal of its material is nothing of the sort. Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:50, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Just discovered this now. I've been an Ancestry user for over 10 years and agree with Zero0000. At what point can the description be modified? - kosboot (talk) 18:24, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

@Ghmyrtle: @Kosboot: I rewrote the description. Please check that I got it right. Zero^talk 04:07, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't think that user-generated material regarding living people is usually (or ever - I could be wrong) accessible to anyone other those who have added it, or those who have personally been given direct access by those who added it - that is, it is hidden by default. As most of the material that is provided at Ancestry.com is not user-generated, it is debatable whether the site as a whole should be listed here under the heading "user-generated". Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:57, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Quite right. I moved it to the "Companies" section. Zero^talk 09:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

It's much better. Again, as a steady user of Ancestry, I'd say about 5% of the material is user-generated (family trees and DNA results). The other 95% are scans of official documents (infrequently with emendated transcription from users). Perhaps if you could specify this disparity, by saying, yes, there are two types, but the official documentation makes up the overwhelming bulk of the site. Also, for library users (Ancestry has a special version for libraries), the user-generated content is not available. Thank you! - kosboot (talk) 10:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC).

Actually a lot of the user-generated content is available in the library edition. I'm not an individual subscriber and I can see a lot. I think you can't search for family trees by name, but if you search for a person it shows you hits in family trees and then you can see the whole tree except recent generations if the user has made it public. Anyway, I editted the text again. Zero^talk 11:43, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Rephrasing User:Beetstra, being "reliable" is not the same as being correct. In my own work at Ancestry I've found many official records, especially decennial censuses and draft registrations more than birth or death certificates, but also including these, to be contradictory with other such records, or even self-contradictory within a single document, such as birth date and age making no sense. There seem to be two different reasons for these discrepancies: self-reported information is per se "user generated", and depends on the respondent's concern for privacy, honesty, reliable memory, or simply annoyance at being interrupted. Second, consider the interviewer, who is under pressure to complete as many forms as possible; and especially when there are language or accent difficulties in understanding, may also make assumptions rather than asking all specific questions – such as deriving age from reported birth date, or native language from reported country of origin. For some reason that I don't understand, with many people their immigration date shown from 1900 through 1930 might be different on each census. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:12, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Since we are talking about external links here, Ancestry is going to be pretty worthless as an external link because it is behind a paywall. Rublamb (talk) 01:16, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

FindaGrave "Common Issue" error

Item #5 in the Find a Grave Common Issues rationale is incorrect. When a grave is designated "Famous" Find a Grave "manages" the particular grave. Users and readers cannot change any information. They can suggest changes or corrections. Official Find a Grave editors/employees decide on the changes. Same thing applies to the cemeteries that Find a Grave lists. Corrections are submitted via the website feedback link and reviewed by Find a Grave employees. – S. Rich (talk) 14:23, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

"Famous" bios are user-submitted and lack evidence of fact-checking, and besides represent only a small portion of content. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:41, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Find a Grave also contains copyrighted material such as scanned newspaper articles that are not correctly cited and cannot be transferred as a source to Wikipedia. Yes, it has editors that review or control some cemetery content. However, I find errors in that content frequently, whether incorrect family relationships or gaps/mistranslations in cemetery content--and the editors are either slow or never update the content, even with documentation. The bottom line is that it is mostly user created and is, therefore, unreliable. Rublamb (talk) 18:58, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Also, when the person is "Famous", there should be better sources available to editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:11, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

What you both say is true, but does not address my point about the particular argument. Find a Grave DOES exercise direct editorial control over those entries. (And Find a Grave will correct errors that are pointed out for cemeteries and persons, famous or not.) Your arguments are fallacious. Some errors do not mean everything is in error. There is information that is 1,000 percent correct, such as the dates we see on gravestones. Many sources of data are completely reliable such as the US Department of Veterans Affairs or Find a Grave User No. 6 -- War Graves. Relying on the opinion essay WP:ELPEREN to remove such WP:NOTEWORTHY FAG entries -- not used as a source -- ignores the WP Guidance we see in WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. – S. Rich (talk) 15:29, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

@Srich32977, context doesn't really matter for ==External links==. There isn't much opportunity for context in a URL.

I wonder if you could tell me whether you are unhappy about a single link to this website being removed from a particular article, or if your interest is closer to adding dozens/hundreds of links to this website (e.g., to many "Famous" pages)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:10, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Find a Grave "Sometimes" check mark

Following the {{User:Yoenit/exclamation mark}} – * for the ELs we see the terms "Generally yes", "Sometimes", "Maybe", "Generally no", and "Almost never". The term "Rarely" is not used, and WP:EL does not use the term with regard to ELs. ("Rarely" is not used with regard to the "As a source" listings.) In order to bring consistency to these notations I've changed the Find a Grave notation to "Sometimes". This word is used in the following sentence. And the notation about Find a Grave as an EL is now consistent with WP:EL guidance. – S. Rich (talk) 17:14, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

The list, as it's been used in the past, looks like this:

• Y Generally yes
• * Sometimes
• * Maybe
• * Rarely
• N Generally no
• N Almost never

I grant that Find-a-Grave is the only one that has used "Rarely", but it's been using that language since 2011. Before that, since the very first version of this page in 2010, the Find-a-Grave entry said "Generally no". I wonder, therefore, why you think that it should be "standardized" on a much more accepting level than ever before? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:51, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

I would suggest going back to generally no. As per WP:LINKSTOAVOID #1 . Moxy- 21:20, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Here's the problem: we generally understand the differences between "Yes", "No", and "Maybe". But what is the difference between "Sometimes", "Maybe" and "Rarely"? Or between "Generally no" and "Almost never"? Or between "Rarely" and "Generally no"? These are labels slapped onto the listing with no definition and no basis in general WP guidance or policy. Moreover, the WP:RSPI does not discuss these symbols. But because they are big and colorful symbols, they get attention. And then if you seek to add the Arlington National Cemetery FindaGrave number to the article you get slapped down – with WP:ELPEREN (an essay) cited as the rational. But the actual WP:EL is not cited as the rationale and it does not support these symbols or descriptives. – S. Rich (talk) 21:57, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

I have no problem with better "symbolic" wording. More concerned with wording that implies FaG is anything more then a Wiki. We should not be leading our readers to a website with zero academic credibility controlled by the public and family members simply for a photo. Moxy- 22:11, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

No, "simply for a photo" is not correct. LDS Genealogy recommends FAG as a resource. But let's stick to the issue – can we define and limit these terms, and put those definitions into the instruction page? And then add the colorful check marks? – S. Rich (talk) 22:31, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

No clue who LDS ...looks like another privately held website with no credentials.....but what wording do you have in mind? Moxy- 22:48, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

It's the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is a huge deal in genealogy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:51, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

It specifically says it's not part of that association and is privately held. Moxy- 22:55, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

RSP is a five-year-old attempt to do for RSN what we've done here for much longer. If RSP didn't choose to provide definitions for symbols that pre-date RSP's existence by almost a decade, then that's not really our fault here. In general, you should not expect any particular sort of similarity between ELPEREN and RSP; after they copied this, they diverged significantly to make it better suited to their volume.

I think the symbols are helpful in that they catch the eye. However, they could be removed, and the words that follow them would still be what really matters, and the words would still represent what the basic dictionary definition says. This isn't a case of us calling an article "neutral" or a subject "notable" within the meaning of our own jargon; when we write "Sometimes" for one and "Rarely" for another, we mean that the first is more frequently going to be accepted than the second.

Srich, it sounds to me like your real problem is that you'd like to include Find-A-Grave links on a lot more articles than other editors. Have you considered making the case for the community to be more accepting of these links? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:51, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Personally I wish there were Find-a-Grave links in the external links section of articles. There use to be, but then someone (not a bot as I recall) went around removing all of them, saying they were not authoritative or something similar. - kosboot (talk) 13:55, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I am okay with Find a Grave as an external link as it usually includes a photo of the grave and burial location that cannot be included in the main article. Rublamb (talk) 14:56, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Template:Infobox person has a |burial_place=option, and a matching parameter for exact GPS coordinates, so burial locations could be included there.

Do you have any guess as to how often a photo the grave is both available and actually appropriate for a Wikipedia article? When I think of the graves for my family members (none of whom are notable), I can't really imagine anyone outside the family wanting to know what the grave looks like, and even within the family, I think most people wouldn't be interested. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:07, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: There are a lot of non-family related reasons to look at gravestones – for notable and for non-notable people. How elaborate is the tombstone? Did the veteran get mention of significant awards? Is there a religious symbol on the stone? How is the upkeep? The Boothill Graveyard (Tombstone, Arizona) itself a tourist attraction. Tombstone tourists make special visits everywhere. Others work to preserve tombstones. Much of Egypt's economy is based on people visiting the graves of the pharaohs. With these factors in mind Wikipedia can be a resource for such interest as it is a starting point. And Find a Grave is one stone to be used as we build our compendium of knowledge about everything. (Again, we must not use FAG as a source in our articles, but it is very acceptable as an External link in articles.) – S. Rich (talk) 16:55, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Tombstone tourism sounds like a good travel topic for Wikivoyage. Please consider starting an article there, where it would be welcome.

I happen to like looking around old cemeteries myself, but I've been given to understand over the years that mine is a rather unusual view. So what will you say to the editors who think that links to Find-A-Grave are unimportant? How would you help them differentiate between the better or worse options? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Although I do not support Find A Grave as a source for Wikipedia because it is a user generated resource, it makes perfect sense as an allowable external link. I liken it to a resource akin to IMDb; user created but widely used and checked and updated for lots of editors. Find A Grave includes information that may not be in a Wikipedia article, including date of birth, date of death, and the names of a spouse, children, and parents. This information is collected from cemetery markers and public records that are not allowable sources for Wikipedia. Whenever possible, this website includes a grave photograph and often includes a photograph of the person. These images are often unique to Find A Grave because they are provided by volunteers and family members; however, the photos do not have the copyright status to be shared through Wikipedia. I agree with @Srich32977 that there is visual information to be gained from seeing the tombstones. In addition, the specific cemetery that a person is buried in can also be informative. In terms of interest in burial locations for Wikipedians, note that the “person infobox” includes two ways to include burial location. In addition, there are articles about famous or notable cemeteries in Wikipedia, that include lists of notable people who are buried there. Although Find A Grave may not be a source for Wikipedia, it can help fill in the blanks or lead an editor to allowable sources. Rublamb (talk) 00:11, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

@Rublamb, permanent grave markers are allowable primary sources; use {{cite sign}} to cite them. Public records are generally allowable sources for dead people. (Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons rejects them only for living people, not for long-dead people.) The only real concern is whether the "Robert Smith" named on the grave marker is the particular Robert Smith (disambiguation) that the article is about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:18, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I have yet to find a guideline in Wikipedia that specifically says a tombstone or public records (Census or birth, death, and marriage records) can be used as references. WP:RSPRIMARY comes the closest, but still indicates that primary sources "must be used with caution in order to avoid original research." Which leads us to the question: how does one get to a tombstone to use it as a source? If you visit a cemetery or take a photo yourself, that would be original research. (And that option is highly unlikely for most editors anyway). If you find an image in an allowable source, that source would the used for the citation rather than the tombstone. Sources that include a photograph of a tombstone are rare except for really famous people, which is one of the reasons Find A Grave is a unique resource.

It is important to remember that we are talking about a possible external link, not a reference for articles. WP:EXTERNAL says, ” Some acceptable external links include those that contain further research that is accurate and on-topic, information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail, or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy.” The issue here is not whether the info in Find A Grave can be found elsewhere but whether it meets this criteria for an External Link. IMO, it does. Rublamb (talk) 00:48, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Verifiability#cite note-7 which says "This includes material such as documents in publicly accessible archives as well as inscriptions in plain sight, e.g. tombstones." Public records are "documents in publicly accessible archives" and tombstones are tombstones, and both are therefore clearly allowed by the WP:V policy.

Reading "inscriptions in plain sight", whether they're Blue plaques or signs at museums or tombstones, is not a case of an editor making stuff up that's never been published in a source before, so of course it's not an OR problem. They are primary sources, and all primary sources (including those found in a newspaper) need to be used with caution. In the case of tombstones, that would mean being cautious about assuming that a tombstone that says "Robert Smith" is the particular Mr Smith whom the article is about, and it would also mean not turning a conventional inscription like "Beloved Husband and Father" into a statement that the entire family loved him. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:01, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks--it is really into the weeds when you have to look at an efn to find an answer. (Now it is going to bug me as to why vital records provided by Ancestry are not allowed to be used as a source as it is an electronic archive). However, I think we can agree that most Wikipedia editors do not visit the burial places of the people they write about to take photos and capture information. Nevertheless, the ability to use a tombstone as a source in Wikipedia helps prove that Finda A Grave meets the standard for reliability needed for an external link. Rublamb (talk) 01:36, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Also, just found that 60% of the entries in Find A Grave have a photo. Rublamb (talk) 01:38, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

> the ability to use a tombstone as a source in Wikipedia helps prove that Finda A Grave meets the standard for reliability

Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. The tombstone itself might be a reliable primary source. (That means you could usually write a sentence like "The tombstone is black" or "The inscription on the tombstone says 'Here lies a master baker'".) However, Find-A-Grave has a lot more content than just what you would see if you went to the cemetery.

(External links don't have to be reliable sources per WP:ELMAYBE.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:57, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Please, to be clear, I like including FindaGrave in the External links section of articles. (This is part of building of our encyclopedia.) And I think the essays and information pages related to FindaGrave are being misused. There was (is) a conflation about FindaGrave as an un-reliable source for citations verses the acceptable addition as an External link in WP articles. But the vague, overlapping, undefined, unsupported "check marks" we see only adds to WP editing policy confusion and misuse. Solution? Either remove the check marks from this explanatory essay, or reduce the choices to 3 simple descriptions – "Yes", "No", and "Maybe". – S. Rich (talk) 02:15, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

There is a big spread between "maybe" meaning "usually but not always yes" and "maybe" meaning "usually but not always no", and conflating the two helps no one, per WAID. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:14, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I was referring to Find-a-Grave only as an external link. As an amateur genealogist, I know most others in the field would caution when using gravestones/markers - a large part of the time they provide incorrect information. - kosboot (talk) 10:15, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

The National Map Corps & Find a Grave cemetery listings

The National Map Corps, part of the United States Geological Survey, has an Authoritative Sources list, which includes cemeteries posted by Find a Grave. "These [cemetery listings] are authoritative if the entry has photos and the number of interments/burials recorded." With an authoritative, official US government source giving its blessing to Find a Grave cemetery listings it is time to revise this listing with regard to cemeteries. Find a Grave information, about cemeteries, should be allowed both as a Reliable Source and External Link. Comments? – S. Rich (talk) 19:33, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I think your comment is posted in the wrong location. But for what it is worth, this is not an offical USGS publication as it is not identified or numbered as such. The National Maps Corps includes the work of many volunteers, so this is probably something of that ilk. Even if it were an official document, it is not saying that every entry in Find A Grave is reliable, nor are they endorsing other content such as biographical sketches and family links. They are only noting that burials connected to a cemetery survey and a photo are reliable. I think this is too nuanced to become a Wikipedia source. However, I endorse FAG for an external link. Rublamb (talk) 20:36, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

The USGS url is https://navigator.er.usgs.gov/, which makes it a very official document. And the NMC (National Map Corps) only wants information about structures. Accordingly, if a FaG cemetery listing has photos and numbers the NMC can use the FaG listing to put the cemetery on the big map. FaG information about "numbers of burials" is NMC guidance to the volunteers who are looking to use FaG as a reliable source. That way the "Satchmo Family Cemetery", with only a few burials, does not get listed on the National Map. Your concern about nuance is appreciated! I hope we can cleanup this Perennial websites list and clarify two points: 1. FaG cemetery listings are different than individual burial listings. 2. Such cemetery listings are acceptable in WP as RS and EL, provided they add noteworthy information. – S. Rich (talk) 23:12, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

@Srich32977: The document may be shared through the USGS website, but it is not an official document. It does not even have the USGS or NMC name on it! I used to work at a depository library for the USGS. Their official publications are always identified with the USGS name and usually have a unique number. Another missing piece here is that these cemeteries are not being added to a map by just using Find A Grave or because an NMC volunteer finds it through one of these sources. This is a source of information that will then be fact-checked by staff with aerial photography, satellite imagery, or on-site visits before becoming a permanent change to a map. Rublamb (talk) 00:04, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

@Rublamb: IMO the "official-ness" of the criteria provided is not the issue. (Are we talking about how the USGS uses FaG info or about how WP uses it?) Since we see that the NMC accepts FaG as a source for cemetery information I think we should expand/allow our WP-usage of FaG cemeteries. E.g., we allow FaG-cemetery listings as stepping stones to verify and develop the listings of cemeteries on Wikipedia. (After all, this is what TNM does.) As it stands now this WP:ELP listing improperly rejects mention of any and all FaG-cemetery urls. – S. Rich (talk) 01:16, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Proposed clarification to essay WRT Find a Grave

With the above (and many previous) comments in mind – specifically as to Find a Grave cemeteries and "famous" and ordinary people – I propose the following revisions to this essay:

{{shortcut|WP:FINDAGRAVE-EL}} {{See also|WP:RSP#Find a Grave|Template:Find a Grave}}

• As an External Link in cemetery articles: "Yes". A Find a Grave cemetery link is acceptable when it provides images, location information, and number of graves in the cemetery.
• As a Reliable Source for cemetery articles: "Yes". When it provides information about the cemetery, such as location, images, and number of graves.
• As an External Link in articles about persons: "It depends". For Find a Grave "famous" persons, the information is usually accessible via other sources. Accordingly, adding a Find a Grave listing is unnecessary if no additional information is provided.
• An a Reliable Source in articles about persons: "Maybe". Find a Grave listings for "non-famous" persons are rarely helpful because such names are not notable or WP:noteworthy. But Find a Grave listings about "famous" persons should be evaluated according to WP:CONTEXTMATTERS.
• Common issues:
  1. Some editors consider it a type of fansite that is not written by a recognized expert (ELNO#11).
  2. Some pages contain copyright violations (WP:ELNEVER and WP:COPYLINK). Find a Grave requests that contain copyright violations be reported to info@findagrave.com with a link to the relevant page or image. Never link to copyright violations on Wikipedia.
  3. Some editors say it should generally be avoided as an External link because it does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article (ELNO#1).
  4. Some editors believe that if reliable published sources do not include the information that you have found only at Find a Grave (e.g., exact dates of birth or death), then that information is—by definition—not important enough to include.
  5. Some editors say Find a Grave does not exercise editorial control, and the material added to the site by volunteers is not vetted (WP:QS, WP:USERGEN)
  6. Find a Grave contains dates of birth, death and place of burial, material which is frequently not cited by other sources in an article (even though it is in theory available from other sources). Since it's not a reliable source, it should not be cited as a source, but having an external link allows others to find where information comes from. Such material is rarely controversial (WP:CHALLENGE).

– S. Rich (talk) 05:21, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

The current version is more appropriate. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:53, 21 December 2023 (UTC)