'"404 Error!" "Site not found!" "OH, NO!!!"I am sure you do something like I do when I find a very good web site with lots of data... you save it as a favorite to go back to again & again as you need it. And isn't it great when you find a web site that has a very promising link to another site that might contain info you are looking for? You click on the link in your favorites or on that link on a website and you get "SITE NOT FOUND!" "OH, NO!" [
Expletives deleted.]
I am going to ask you to not panic when this happens, I have discovered ways to find these lost pages. I have 4 suggestions to find that lost site:
1. Often it is a simple error as to whether the link was posted correctly. Change the "
htm" or "html" file extension to the opposite... if it has "
htm" at the end it may need the "l" to make it right or vice
versa.
2. Sometimes the web master will change the page extension from something like "West.html" to "Thomas West.html" because he has added "John West.html" to the site. The site might have been:
htp:/evansville.net/mylines/West.html [using a bogus link for example]... it would be essentially impossible to guess it was changed to have "Thomas West.html." What you do is take off the file name at the end, like
htp:/evansville.net/mylines/ this should bring you to the main page that would have links to the page with the new file name. You may have to add "index.html" or "home.html"or "main.html" to get the entry page.
3. Well, great, John, neither of those ideas worked! Then try this from the "
Internet Archive WayBackMachine" the archive of almost all sites and even has updated links for the site over a period of time. You have to have the old URL (web site address). Go here for this great research tool:
http://www.archive.org/index.php "The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public." Please remember that even though these pages may no longer be on the Internet (at least at that link), the pages & perhaps the data is copyrighted!
4. And, finally, a new way to find some sites that were on
GeoCities.com. This was on
Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter [
Geocities? Reocities! 10 Jul 2010]: "The
Ancestor Search Blog has an interesting story about online genealogy information that was thought to be lost forever. Quoting from the article: 'Back when the
Internet was new, one of the places genealogists started putting their family trees was
Geocities. During these last 15 years, a whole lot of genealogy info was stored on
Geocities. Family trees, Civil War regiments, burial locations, you name it. When Yahoo closed
Geocities last year, a lot of info was lost forever for
Internet genealogy researchers. While many active webmasters moved their sites, all too many did not.' The article then goes on to describe a newly-found repository that seems to have most of the information that was on
Geocities when the service was shut down. You can read the full article at
http://ancestorsearch.blogspot.com/2010/07/geocities-reocities.html The article says to change "
geocities" in the URL of your lost page to "
reocities" (in other words change the "g" to "r") to get an archived page! They are not sure how many pages was archived, but try it to see if you can find it.
- Compiled by
JGWest
