Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Then and Now -- Source Citations

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:

It's Saturday Night again -

time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is:

1)  Then and Now - How have you documented your genealogy and family history research with source citations over the years?  What did you start with (Then) and what do you presently use (Now)?  Please share your experiences.

Here's mine:
When I started doing genealogy in the early 90s after my two children were born, I knew I wanted to have citations for the information I was finding. I used a wire-bound notebook for my research at first. Mostly, I was using either a census record or a book of indexes. I would just write everything that seemed important about the source in my notebook and then keep track of what I found. These were not formal citations in any style. As a science major, I liked the citations we used where we just sorted the author’s name and date of the article within parentheses.

The first citation manual I used was Richard S. Lackey’s book, Cite Your Sources, published in 1985. It was a simple book of 94 pages. I no longer have the book, so I cannot look at it to compare what type of citations he had. These citations that I created were used in my notebooks and in the notes section of my genealogy program of the time, Personal Ancestral File (PAF).

The next book I discovered was Elizabeth Shown Mills’ book Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian. I still have this book because, in 2004, she came out to California to present at the Sonoma County Genealogical Society for an all-day seminar. I brought the book and she autographed it! This small volume of 124 pages had citation style guides but also, she discussed the function of notes, abbreviation tips, stylistic tips, and guidelines for analyzing evidence. This was my source citation guide for many years.

Later, a newer version of PAF came out based on Windows that included source templates. I started trying to use them, though I preferred just creating my sources in notes. When I moved to Legacy Family Tree software by using GED-COM, none of the details transferred to the new program. I had to constantly open PAF and copy and paste the details portion of the citation to the new program.

When Elizabeth Shown Mills’ newer volume Evidence Explained: Citing Historic Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace (EE) came out in 2007, I immediately purchased it because there were so many more source citation templates than in her earlier book, and it included discussions about those kinds of sources and how one should use them. It’s a thick volume with hundreds of templates. It is now in its third edition revised. I just have the third edition.

I find this resource extremely useful when I get a source I have never worked with before, especially sources created by national governments or religious organizations. Instead of just jumping to the quick guide templates (gray pages), I go to the page that discusses this source (white pages). I want to understand the source before trying to use a template.

I use RootsMagic software now but I don’t use the built-in citation templates, mostly because of the same reason that Randy doesn’t use them. They do not transfer well when I create and upload a GEDCOM into another program. So, I use the freeform template and create my source citations in a basic form, with most of the details in the detail field. That way, I can copy and paste them into a Word document easily with only a few minor corrections.

The other source I use to help with citations is Elizabeth Shown Mills’ website, Evidence Explained, where she writes about evidence analysis and answers questions about source citations in the forum section. It is best to search in the forum first for your question before asking a question because she may have already answered a similar question. She is pretty prompt about responding to questions and gives the section in EE that pertains to the question.

So, that’s how I handle citations. I enjoy creating citations because I like the challenge. However, sometimes my citations are not uniform – meaning citations of the same type might be in a slightly different order. This is because I created them at different times. I deal with these citations when I’m working on a final product. I check for consistency within a Word document once the writing is complete. First, I highlight all the footnotes, change them to red, and after I have formatted them properly, I change them back to black. I work on the same type of citation as I work through the red text one by one. 

Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.