The woes of web writers
Years ago, The Legal Genealogist carefully researched and wrote up a long piece on the six — count ’em — six constitutions that Alabama has had in its closing-in-on-200 years of history.
Yep. Alabama celebrates its bicentennial this year: “Formed as a territory on March 3, 1817, Alabama became the nation’s twenty-second state on December 14, 1819.”1
And that earlier piece — written almost seven years ago2 — had so many cool facts about those six constitutions and Alabama history and all that.
So I went to review it yesterday, since I’m flying out this morning to speak at this weekend’s 2019 Alabama Genealogical Society seminar at Samford University.
And the very first link I clicked on — to some of Alabama’s historical geography — came back this way:
Oh yeah. The Newberry updated that part of its website.
Okay, so then I clicked on a link to one of Alabama’s constitutions itself, on the website of the State Legislature. Guess what?
Really? I mean, really?
Sigh… yeah, really.
Now… not all the links were broken, but enough were that … well … yeah.
I kinda have to revisit this.
But just to get you through until I can update it, there really were six constitutions in Alabama. And their text and other relevant documents really are all online.
Just not where they were.
You can find them now at the website of the Alabama Department of Archives and History:
• The 1819 Constitution of Alabama
• The 1861 Constitution of Alabama
• The 1865 Constitution of Alabama
• The 1868 Constitution of Alabama
• The 1875 Constitution of Alabama
• The 1901 Constitution of Alabama3
Sigh… it isn’t any easier being a web writer than being a genealogist…
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Linking the Alabama Constitutions,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 7 Mar 2019).
SOURCES
- “Why a Bicentennial?,” Alabama 200 (http://alabama200.org/ : accessed 6 Mar 2019). ↩
- Judy G. Russell, “State Constitutions: Alabama,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 5 July 2012 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 6 Mar 2019). ↩
- “About this collection,” Alabama Legislative Acts, Journals, and Constitutions, Alabama Departmnent of Archives and History (http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/ : accessed 6 Mar 2019). ↩
Hi Judy,
Did you think to try:
https://archive.org/web/ . ?
You can sometimes find the “redirection” info. but at least you can make your own copy of the original site content – as a permanent back up. It is difficult to remember that EVERYTHING on the web is “transitory.” It is built on base which is constantly vanishing as web sites are removed, changed or simply abandoned. Ultimately all current web sites will (probably) “die” for lack of funding — or interest.
Who knows, there may even be an Internet 2 at some point!
I use the Wayback Machine all the time, but I’ll be updating with current links if I can find them.
Stubborn persistence and creative perseverance win.
You get the tiara today. 😉