When researching your family it is very important that you keep track of every piece of information. This is important both as a means of verifying or "proving" your data and also as a way for you or other researchers to go back to that source when future research leads to information which conflicts with your original assumption. In genealogy research, any statement of fact, whether it is a birth date or an ancestor's surname, must carry its own individual source.
Source citations in genealogy serve to:
- let others know on which records you based your facts (did the birth date you have for your great-grandmother come from a published family history, a tombstone or a birth certificate?)
- assist others in evaluating your research (if you were lucky enough to find a complete family tree for your grandfather on the Internet, wouldn't you want to know where the information came from?)
- provide a reference in cases where a newly found fact appears to conflict with previous assumptions
- help you to go easily go back to a previously used source when you realize you may have missed information or you have found new details which may lead to more information from that source
In other words, properly citing your sources leaves a big audit trail for others to follow, letting them know what documents you looked at, so they can judge your family tree connections and assumptions for themselves. In conjunction with research logs, proper source documentation also makes it much easier to pick up where you left off with your genealogy research after time spent focusing on other things.
Types of Genealogy Sources
When evaluating and documenting the sources used to establish your family tree connections, it is important to understand the different types of sources.
- Primary vs. Secondary Sources
Referring to the quality of the record, primary sources are records created at or near the time of an event by a person who had reasonably close knowledge of the event. Secondary sources, by contrast, are records created a significant amount of time after an event occurred or by a person who was not present at the event. While both types of sources are important in genealogy research, primary evidence usually carries more weight than secondary evidence. - Original vs. Derivative Sources
Referring to the provenance of the record, original sources are records that contribute written, oral, or visual information not derived - copied, abstracted, transcribed, or summarized - from another written or oral record. Derivative sources are, by their definition, records which have been derived - copied, abstracted, transcribed, or summarized - from previously existing sources. Original evidence usually carries more weight than derivative evidence.
Two Rules for Great Source Citations
Rule One - Follow the Formula - While there is no scientific formula for citing every type of source, a good rule of thumb is to work from general to specific:
- Author - the one who authored the book, provided the interview, or wrote the letter
- Title - if it is an article, then the title of the article, followed by the title of the periodical
- Publication Details
- place of publication, name of publisher and date of publication, written in parentheses (Place: Publisher, Date)
- volume, issue and page numbers for periodicals
- series and roll or item number for microfilm
- Where You Found It - repository name and location, Web site name and URL, cemetery name and location, etc.
- Specific Details - page number, entry number and date, date you viewed a Web site, etc.
Rule Two: Cite What You See - Whenever in your genealogical research you use a derivative source instead of the real thing, you must take care to cite the index, database or book that you used, and NOT the actual source from which the derivative source was created. This is because derivative sources are several steps removed from the original, opening up the door for errors, including:
- handwriting interpretation errors
- microfilm viewing errors (out of focus, back side bleeding through, etc.)
- transcription errors (skipping lines, transposing numbers, etc.)
- typing errors, etc.
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