Are you confused about something regarding a life course or the search functionality? Maybe you can find the answer here.
The blue boxes in the list of search results are suggestions for life courses, and the white boxes are person records, i.e. entered data from censuses, parish registers, burial records, and Police Registration Cards. Life courses consist of linked person records.
Try using different search criteria or broaden your search. Alternatively, try a free text search and use filters to narrow down the results. Read more in the search guide.
The search function primarily searches in data processed by Link-Lives, and the methods used to process the data are continuously improved.
Life courses are created using various advanced methods. You can read more about the methods here.
The linking methods are continuously being developed, and over the coming years there will be more—and better—life courses. The database is updated when additional datasets are linked or when existing datasets are relinked using new methods.
The methods for creating life courses are still under development, and the life courses will gradually become more reliable and complete. However, there will always be life courses that are not entirely accurate because both historical sources and human lives are complex. If you encounter a life course that does not seem reliable, you can report it directly on the life course page. In this way, you can help improve the methods. Read more about giving feedback on life courses here.
The vision is to continuously incorporate new sources into the database so that the constructed life courses become increasingly reliable and complete. How many and how often depends on the resources available for development.
On the life course page, you can find a button where you can mark a link as incorrect. Read more about giving feedback on life courses here.
If you wish to report a data entry error, you should contact the archive that holds the original source and carried out the transcription. This ensures the correction is made as close to the source as possible.
Data entry errors should be reported to the Danish National Archives for censuses and parish registers—and to the Copenhagen City Archives for burial records and Police Registration Cards. See how below:
Yes—there have actually been a number of basic checks applied to the life courses. If the algorithms produce life courses where, for example, a confirmation occurs after a burial, or where a person is born multiple times at different points in time, these are filtered out. However, it is possible to be married multiple times, and although five times may seem unlikely, it is not impossible. Therefore, such a life course is not automatically excluded.
However, you can provide feedback on the life course—which of the five marriages do you think is correct? Read more about giving feedback on life courses here.
It has not yet been decided how and when the feedback will be applied in practice, so it is not possible to provide a timeline for any corrections resulting from feedback.
Unfortunately, it is not currently possible to change your feedback on a link. Fortunately, multiple users must provide the same feedback before it is considered in the next version of the life courses.
Information about links between person records in a life course, as well as the option to provide feedback, is unfortunately not visible on mobile and iPad. The feedback function currently only works on larger screens (over 1265 px), such as a laptop.
There is for some sources, but unfortunately not for all. In particular, links to original sources are missing for censuses from 1901 and earlier, as well as for parish registers from 1814–1917. This is because no direct link was created during the original transcription process to the image that was transcribed. It is an ambition to address this in the future, but it requires significant resources.
This may be because you entered your email address incorrectly or because the email ended up in your spam folder. Check your spam filter, and if you do not find the email there, we suggest trying again and double-checking your email address.
You are searching across all birth years that appear in the person records within a life course. The birth year highlighted in the search results is taken from the most recent person record in the life course. When you open the life course, you will see that the birth year you searched for appears in one of the other person records in the life course. Person records with different birth years can still be linked within a life course.
When searching for life courses, you are searching across the names that appear in the person records included in the life course. The name highlighted in the search results is taken from the most recent person record in the life course. When you open the life course, you will see that the name you searched for appears in one of the other person records in the life course.
Link-Lives has chosen to highlight certain details as a heading and in search results, even though a life course may contain different versions of that information—for example, spelling variations of names. The choice to highlight the last person record with valid data is based on the assumption that more recent data is more likely to be detailed and consistently spelled.
Yes, but you should be aware that the life course may become “outdated” when new (and better) life courses are published. If this happens and you click your saved link, you will for a period still be able to view the life course. However, the safest approach is to save the individual person record IDs that make up the life course, as these do not change.
Not at the moment, unfortunately.
To link person records, it has been necessary to standardize names so that, for example, Olesen and Olsen are treated the same. When you choose to include spelling variations in your search, you are also searching across these variations.
Yes, in two ways:
Read more about data access and rights here
To link person records, it has been necessary to standardize names so that, for example, Olesen and Olsen are treated the same. Link-Lives has consulted experts in naming practices from the 18th and 19th centuries to compile lists of spelling variations.
The Link-Lives team chose to display all fields so users could determine which ones are relevant to their needs. Unfortunately, this results in some visual “noise”.
Link-Lives has retained the original field names from the transcriptions received, making it as transparent as possible where the data originates. Some of these transcriptions used English field names. Additionally, it has been a priority to ensure the data can be used internationally and by non-Danish speakers, which is why many standardized datasets also include English field names.
You can use the search history button to view your previous searches and the results you have viewed. However, note that this history is not stored in your user profile (if you have one), but in your browser. If you clear your cookies or did not accept cookies when first visiting the site, your search history will not be saved. If you wish to clear your search history, you can delete cookies from Link-Lives in your browser.
