Wednesday, June 13, 2012

FamilySearch Source Box and Ancestry.com Shoebox

FamilySearch recently released Source Box, their version of the Ancestry.com Shoebox. This feature lets users bookmark records to make it easy to return to them later.

Ancestry.com

When viewing a record on Ancestry, click on Save and select Save to My Shoebox.

Click Save and Save to My Shoebox on Ancestry.com

I know of only two ways to access My Shoebox. Shoebox access can be included on your configurable home page. Once logged in, scroll down until you see the section labeled “My Shoebox.” (If it isn’t there, you may need to reconfigure your home page.) It shows the three most recent records and includes a link to “See all shoebox items.”

Shoebox access is also available when viewing a record. Click on the link provided.

Shoebox contents come in two, separately stored varieties:

1. Saved Records
2. Downloaded and Printed Records.

Downloaded and printed records are stored automatically.

FamilySearch

When viewing a record on FamilySearch, click on My Source Box and then on Add to My Source Box. (Login if you haven’t already.)

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My Source Box access is available when viewing a record. Click on My Source Box and then on Go to My Source Box.

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Bookmarks—“sources,” in FamilySearch parlance—can be organized into folders. New sources can be created that bookmark any page on the Internet.

while the titles of the sources look like web links, they are not. Clicking opens up information about the source: name, URL, citation, and note. Click on the URL to link to the web page.

Next time I’ll compare linking a record to someone in your tree. Stay tuned…

8 comments:

  1. I'm going to love this feature. Thanks for pointing it out!

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  2. This is great news! Can't wait to try it. Thanks for the info.

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  4. This new feature in Family Tree to add sources to your source box prohibits any alteration of the Source Title or Citation. These are critical pieces of information and description that will vary according to any individuals ability to understand what they mean and how they are constructed. I certainly take serious issue with both in the construction of title and citation with regard to almost all familysearch formulations - particularly UK census records that completely fail to cite the UK National Archives and the TNA's own citation reference utilising Class/Piece/Folio/Page . . . . if I were to use this means of putting sources in the Source Box I would want/need to be able to modify the title and citation . . . . otherwise it is totally useless . . . or have I missed something?

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  5. Great idea, especially when using iPad. However, although able to save 2 1940 census entries, when I went to source box to create a folder, crashes all the way back to website entry page & requires logging in again.

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  6. ... Same problem on windows laptop, in addition to iPad - and cannot even access stored records before crash.

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  7. Fair play to FamilySearch . . . with regard to my complaint above . . . they have come back with the solution/work around, as follows:

    Having added the family search source to your Source Box you then "copy" the added source . . . the resultant copied source allows the source title and citation to be altered . . . and then you can "remove" the original added in source with its fixed title and citation.

    I do note that in as far as my testing has gone on this . . . it only extends to the Family Search transcription pages and does not allow the original image (if available) to be referenced to the source. I can suppose that the thinking is that any other user accessing the source document will only see the Family Search transcription and from that point can access the source document if validated by their LDS or Family Search log-in.

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  8. I'm happy to report that the problems I had with creating folders has now been fixed, so that I was able to create 2 separate folders, and move saved document images to each via my iPad

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