by Brenna Corbit, Technical Services Librarian
With the dog days of summer approaching, it’s a good time to stay indoors, crank up the AC, and spend some time housekeeping your family tree. Today, I would like to address the importance of citing your sources. Now don’t go clicking this article away to check your Facebook “friends’” statuses because you had enough of works cited pages in college!
Not citing your sources is like some family photo/scrapbooks I have seen. There is 2x great grandmom’s obituary neatly clipped from the newspaper, glued to the page, and . . .; wait a minute, when did this event take place? The article states she died last Tuesday at her home. But what year? what month? what day? what newspaper? There is no footnote! Great grandmom knew when she clipped it some 70 odd years ago, but she isn’t helping me figure out the family history since she, too, passed away about 20 years ago!
The same goes for 95 percent of the family trees on Ancestry and other family tree websites. In many cases, a person is correct with the facts but offers nothing as to where this information is from. Yes, citing is tedious, but it is good practice to help fellow researchers and your great grandchildren. In the end, citing becomes second nature, so just relax
Websites like Ancestry automatically cite the source if you attach one of their files to a person and event, but you will have to cite anything you personally add, such as a scanned photo or document you found in the courthouse.
You can use any style you like, MLA, ALA, Chicago, or anything to at least point a fellow family historian in the right direction. There is no professor grading you on this. Almost all styles are quite similar. It is just common sense information. Who said that? Where is it from? When was it said? Where did you find the information?
My method is based on Chicago style. Here are a few examples:
Not citing your sources is like some family photo/scrapbooks I have seen. There is 2x great grandmom’s obituary neatly clipped from the newspaper, glued to the page, and . . .; wait a minute, when did this event take place? The article states she died last Tuesday at her home. But what year? what month? what day? what newspaper? There is no footnote! Great grandmom knew when she clipped it some 70 odd years ago, but she isn’t helping me figure out the family history since she, too, passed away about 20 years ago!The same goes for 95 percent of the family trees on Ancestry and other family tree websites. In many cases, a person is correct with the facts but offers nothing as to where this information is from. Yes, citing is tedious, but it is good practice to help fellow researchers and your great grandchildren. In the end, citing becomes second nature, so just relax
Websites like Ancestry automatically cite the source if you attach one of their files to a person and event, but you will have to cite anything you personally add, such as a scanned photo or document you found in the courthouse.
You can use any style you like, MLA, ALA, Chicago, or anything to at least point a fellow family historian in the right direction. There is no professor grading you on this. Almost all styles are quite similar. It is just common sense information. Who said that? Where is it from? When was it said? Where did you find the information?
My method is based on Chicago style. Here are a few examples:
Digital Book
DeVault, Newland, Henry and Mary Catherine Dewald (DeVault) of Manheim Township York Co., Pa., Banning California, 1975, digital images, www.familysearch.org : accessed 10 June 2018.
DeVault, Newland, Henry and Mary Catherine Dewald (DeVault) of Manheim Township York Co., Pa., Banning California, 1975, digital images, www.familysearch.org : accessed 10 June 2018.
Digital newspaper
“Mrs. John Fortunati,” obituary, Reading (Pennsylvania) Eagle, 6 July 1943, p.20, col.1, digital images, Google Newspaper Archives, www.news.google.com : accessed 22 April 1917.
“Mrs. John Fortunati,” obituary, Reading (Pennsylvania) Eagle, 6 July 1943, p.20, col.1, digital images, Google Newspaper Archives, www.news.google.com : accessed 22 April 1917.
CD-ROM
Death Records City of Reading, 1873 to 1905, CD-ROM, transcriptions, no date, Entry for Alva E. Miller, 1 February 1895.
Death Records City of Reading, 1873 to 1905, CD-ROM, transcriptions, no date, Entry for Alva E. Miller, 1 February 1895.
Print Book
St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church Baptismal Register, St. Paul’s R. C. Church, compiled by J. M. Matyszak, 1973, entry for Helena Lis, 13 May 1934, p. 24, available: Berks County Historical Society, Reading, Pennsylvania. (Since hand bound books, binders, etc such as these are not readily available in other libraries, I like to mention the holding for the item.)
St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church Baptismal Register, St. Paul’s R. C. Church, compiled by J. M. Matyszak, 1973, entry for Helena Lis, 13 May 1934, p. 24, available: Berks County Historical Society, Reading, Pennsylvania. (Since hand bound books, binders, etc such as these are not readily available in other libraries, I like to mention the holding for the item.)
Stay organized and cite as you go along. There is nothing worse than going back later on with a pile of confusion and no clue as to where you found the information. Believe me, the notes, clippings, and copies pile up quickly.
Much of what I use for research support comes from the same sources, such as Google Newspaper Archives, Family Search, Newspapers.com, to name a few. Thus, to make citing easy I keep an open Word file of various citations I use as templates. Just make sure you change the proper information, or many of your ancestors’ obituaries will be dated 4 April 1944, for example. Yes, I have made that mistake.
If you need help, come looking for me. But you won’t find me in the July sun in some remote cemetery recording headstones. I’ll be digging up an ancestor the nice and cool way—on my laptop while sitting in my air-conditioned apartment.
Much of what I use for research support comes from the same sources, such as Google Newspaper Archives, Family Search, Newspapers.com, to name a few. Thus, to make citing easy I keep an open Word file of various citations I use as templates. Just make sure you change the proper information, or many of your ancestors’ obituaries will be dated 4 April 1944, for example. Yes, I have made that mistake.
If you need help, come looking for me. But you won’t find me in the July sun in some remote cemetery recording headstones. I’ll be digging up an ancestor the nice and cool way—on my laptop while sitting in my air-conditioned apartment.
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