Over the last few months (and two updates last week), Rob Pavery (and others) have updated WikiTree Sourcer a browser extension (Safari, Chrome, Firefox) that helps genealogists search for sources on other genealogy websites and cite them properly (and automatically where possible). It pairs well with the official WikiTree Browser extension (recently updated) and the developers have contributed to other aspects of WikiTree.
WikiTree Sourcer replaces WikiTree X, a browser extension used between 2016-2023, which was discontinued in March of 2023 after new profiles stopped working with the “new add person form”.
With these updates, there are a lot of additional genealogy websites to pull from (New Zealand, New South Wales, NewspaperArchive, Matricula).
The WikiTree Sourcer project has three goals:
- From a WikiTree profile page, you can search other genealogy websites for records relevant to that profile page.
- From the search results of the records on those genealogy websites, it can extract data and put together a citation for your WikiTree project.
- From the records pages on those other genealogy websites, it can search other genealogy websites for similar records. The example the project page uses is while on an Ancestry page, it can help you find free versions of the same original source.
The list of sources that the extension can point you towards is too extensive to list here, so visit this page for more details:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:WikiTree_Sourcer_supported_sites
It is a free extension for Chrome and Firefox users (there is a donation pop-up if you desire to donate), but does cost a small fee ($4.99 USD) for Apple (macOS, iOS, iPadOS) users as Apple charges a yearly fee to publish through the App Store and does not allow donation links in extensions. As a Mac user (and a Windows, and Linux user), I think it’s worth it, given the time it can save you with generating other searches and helping with citations, and it’s frequently updated with new additional source websites.
More information (official site): https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:WikiTree_Sourcer
Downloads:
- macOS (Safari) (Apple App Store)
- iPhone (Safari) (Apple App Store)
- iPad (Safari) (Apple App Store)
- Firefox (Mozilla.org)
- Google Chrome (Chrome Web Store)
| Changes in WikiTree Sourcer 2.5.1 (September 5, 2024) |
| Scotlands People — Fix issue parsing spouse name in Church of Scotland marriage |
| Matricula — Fix issue that could crash search menu creation |
| FamilySearch — Fix issue where no event place was found for a US PA marriage |
| NZBDM (New Zealand) — Fix issue in search where the to date could be today instead of yesterday |
| New South Wales BDM Fix case in search where the from and to dates could be the same |
| Changes in WikiTree Sourcer 2.5.0 (September 4, 2024) |
| New Zealand BDM — Add support for this site |
| New South Wales BDM — Add support for this site |
| Matricula — Add support for this site |
| NewspaperArchive — Add support for this site |
| Ancestry.com — Ability to add a source to Ancestry: Add support for filling the fields when adding a source that references another site. — Add support for HeritageQuest — Minor fix for an unwanted break after “free access” |
| FindMyPast — Add support for building citation on a newspaper clipping |
| GRO — Update end year for search to 2022 |
| FamilySearch — Change to use the event place from the page rather then picking one from the JSON data |
| ScotlandsPeople — Update the search URL after web site update |
| Changes in WikiTree Sourcer 2.4.3 (August 11, 2024) |
| Add Person and Merge/Edit — Fix a crash introduced in version 2.4.2 |
| Various minor bug fixes and improvements |
| Norway DigitalArkivet — Fix gender in search. If no gender known it was using female. |
| Changes in WikiTree Sourcer 2.4.2 (August 8, 2024) |
| General Fix a crash in household tables |
| Norway DigitalArkivet — Improve handling of images, get permanent ID correctly — Fix crash when municipal census birth date not in expected format — Stop removing extended ASCII characters in names in the search — Handle some dates that are dd.mm.yyyy instead of yyyy-mm-dd — Improve place prepositions (“at” vs. “in” etc) — Remove things like Gårdens nr. And floor from source reference — Remove apartment number from place name — Improve search —- Add options to control search —- Add Search for same record in same collection —- Add Search for same event —- Add Search in collection —- Add Search with parameters |
| Find-a-Grave — When checking for an image check that it is a grave photo and not some other type |
| Changes in WikiTree Sourcer 2.4.1 (July 30, 2024) |
| General — Add some more alternate country names |
| FindAGrave — Update extract for new sponsored memorial format |
| Norway DigitalArkivet — Add support for Deaths 1951-2014 — Add support for non-principal roles in Baptism etc — Improve handling of census households with multiple families — Fix a case issue with 1875 census — Improve handling of municipal censuses — Changed to work with table view of page (“Show as table”) as well as list view. — Improve extraction of the date and place for unclassified record types |
| Changes in WikiTree Sourcer 2.4.0 (July 23, 2024) |
| General — Add more prefixes that are removed from name if no specific prefix field |
| Add/Merge — If a woman has one marriage with no date then assume her husband was her last husband |
| Library and Archives Canada — Fix extract on record pages after following a link. |
| FamilySearch — Include Enumeration District in citation fir US 1950 census |
| Norway DigitalArkiven — Add support for new site |
| Changes in WikiTree Sourcer 2.3.8 (July 11, 2024) |
| General — Add valid date ranges to some county names — Add country data for South Africa colonies (with valid date ranges) |
| Popup menus — Add options to alphabetically sort search menu items — Add options to change the order of search menu items vs other actions — Add options to change the way the Build Citation menu items are presented (using a submenu optionally) |
| WikiTree — Add options and parameters to give more control to the search of WikiTree |
| Ancestry — Improve handling of prefixes and suffixes. For example do not interpret “Jr” as the last name of the father. — Add “Parish number” to source reference (for Scotland 1851 census) — Fix bug in code to remove duplicate name/value pairs in Source reference. — Classify some more record types |
| GRO — add code to disambiguate district based on volume – used to create correct ukbmd link |
| Newspapers.com — Add option to use clipping title in citation |