About the links

Internal links

In its original digital format, the fifth edition has page references, and these are identical to those in the print edition. Since the digital version had neither distinct pages or any indication of page numbers, these references weren’t actually of any use.

In this edition, however, even though there are, again, no explicit page numbers, the page references in the text have been made to link to the correct location in the book. Cross-references between chapters, too, have been furnished with links.

Each screenshot in the text is also a link to a full-size image.

External links

All the external links in this book were correct when the book went to the printers in May 2012. At the end of 2023, a check revealed that over one third of them no longer worked or no longer led to the same material.

Repaired links

For around half the broken links, the content seems simply to have been moved to a new address — often because a site has been reorganized — and I have updated the broken link to the new location. However, in the intervening years a page may well have had changes in content, design and external links. In consequence, this book’s description of what you will find on such a site may no longer be entirely accurate. To alert you to this possibility, these updated links are indicated by <dotted underlining>.

One particular type of broken link has been treated differently. A handful of pages from official websites have been archived at the UK Government Web Archive at <www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/webarchive/>. Where I have found such an archived version, the link, marked <in red with dashed underlining>, will take you to the entry in the archive. The information on the archived page may, naturally, still be out-of-date, particularly things such as contact details or onward links, but it will, at least, match what this book says about it.

Broken links

The remaining broken links have been <greyed out>. Although it is irritating that they no longer work, they are not wholly useless. For vanished content that might be useful to you, there are a number of approaches to hunting it down if it’s still available:

• For many sites, particularly those of public institutions or the main data services, the material is very often still available, especially if it’s reference material about genealogical sources — material which is less likely to become inaccurate over time.
  Following the broken link will usually take you to the site’s home page or a page with an error message — it is then just a matter of using the site’s search facility to find it.
  Indeed, on the National Archives’ site the error page offers a link to the archived version of the page you had expected, as well as to a range of other options. (If only more sites would do this!)
• If a site has no search facility of its own, copy and paste the name of the page into the search field of your preferred search engine, followed by "site:" and the domain name of the site (not the full address of an individual page — you already know that won't find anything).
  Note, however, some sites deliberately block search engines from discovering some or all of their individual pages.
• Particularly if it seems that a page or a whole site no longer exists at all, then going to the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive and entering the full link in the search field may well turn up archived copies of the page.
  Don’t be surprised if the most recently archived version shows exactly the same error message you get if you follow the broken link, but going back to an earlier archived version will always find the original page content.
• If a site has closed down, it might be because it has been moved to new location (this is more often the case with sites run by individuals or small volunteer groups). In that case, it is worth using a search engine with the site title or some suitable keywords.
• Occasionally you will find that a link still works but leads to material which is quite unrelated to what you were expecting (perhaps even in a different language). This will usually be because the original domain name registration has lapsed and the name has been bought by a new owner with different interests. (Again, this is more likely to happen with small sites run by individuals). You may even encounter a page which says something like “This domain is for sale”.
  Entering some keywords in a search engine will be the only way of finding what you were looking for, if it still exists. Old copies of the material may still be accessible on the Wayback Machine.

As with the repaired links, if you track down such material in a new location do not be surprised if what you find there has been modified, and no longer matches the book’s description.

Next chapter: Preface to the 2012 Edition