Citations

I started tracking my family's genealogy about 20 years ago. I have
about 1000 individuals in my tree. Until about a year or two ago, I
didn't care about citing sources at all. I added data indiscriminantly
based on Online resources, word of mouth, and various other records and
recollections.

Tamblyne...

I'm pretty new at this compared to the others here, but I thought I'd
pop in anyway.

I've only been working on my family since last spring. I received a
package of research done by another family member that she sent out
just before she died. Unfortunately, she did not cite sources, and
it's giving me headaches, which is probably the only reason I have
mostly avoided exactly the situation you are talking about. :-)

That and the fact that my background is legal research, which you have
to be pretty anal about -- so the citation part came naturally, too.

Now, I am realizing the need and importance of citing sources and
having well-documented sources. However, the thought of essentially
re-doing the entire project is more than a little undaunting. Also, I
am wondering what the best practices are for various scenarios like:

-How granular should the citations be?

Austin W. Spencer...

[Keeping mind the definition of "granular" offered in a later post:]

As a general principle, every fact that is alluded to in a particular
document and is not common knowledge should receive a citation to that
document. If a single document contains a series of relevant facts and
you present the facts in the original series -- or, better yet, as a
direct transcript -- you need only provide one citation for the whole
mass.

In practice, however, compiled genealogy is rarely that neat. It takes
an often intimidating mass of original documentation to create a full
chronology for any one person's life, and that documentation is usually
diffused among different depositories and different sets of records
within each depository. This is especially the case if that person
changed residence within his or her lifetime. And databases like TMG
are *never* that neat. It is a central function of any database to
record facts in isolation so that they can be treated "alike." Any
collection of facts consigned to a database, genealogical or no, must
be referenced in a very granular manner indeed. This typically results
in a lot of repeated citations of things like older genealogies or
Bible records (which have a lot of facts to a page, all relevant to
different individuals), but that is the price of putting genealogical
data into a database.

Tamblyne...

Personally, I have some kind of citation for every detail -- it had to
come from somewhere, even if it's "personal knowledge". I work from
the assumption that 50 years from now what's in my head won't be
relevant -- it will be what's on the paper that will be useful to
someone.

-Is it necessary to cite all sources that mention certain information,
even if it is redundant? E.g. if my grandmother tells me my
grandfather's birthday and I see his birth certificate, should I cite
both?

Austin W. Spencer...

Usually, it suffices to cite only the best source for each fact.
Documents recorded near the time of the event generally deserve more
credence than information received many years afterward and at second
hand. In this case, the birth certificate is clearly better.

The exact nature of a secondary source is a topic of perennial
controversy around here. From time to time, some have argued that
Grandma's information could be either a primary or a secondary source.
A few profess disbelief that the same document could be considered a
primary source on one question and a secondary source on another. But
it's true. The distinguishing characteristic of a primary source is
that it was recorded near the time of the event(s) it documents, by (or
at the instance of) someone who was directly involved. Almost any
document except a birth certificate that gives a birth date fails that
test, and is therefore a secondary source as to the person's birth --
even if it bears primarily on other facts of life (such as a marriage
date). Think of obituaries, tombstone inscriptions, and printed
genealogies, as well as your grandmother's recollections. But in the
absence of a birth certificate (or a baptismal certificate, or a birth
announcement in the newspaper), secondary sources may be all there are,
and it is then incumbent upon the researcher to locate, evaluate, and
cite the best among those.

Tamblyne...

I cite everything, but then I go back and "clean up" my families and
remove redundancies.

-What if there is conflicting information? How should this be
indicated and cited?

Austin W. Spencer...

As genealogists complain from time to time, in print as well as online,
it is very hard to accommodate conflicting (or even approximate)
information in a database. The simplest solution for the database
developer is simply not to, and use a database to cite only the best
sources. But this approach allows for no assurance that the researcher
knows of the conflict or has tried to reconcile it. I think these
conflicts are best resolved in a writerly fashion, by appending a
detailed explanation of the conflict to the individual's record,
followed by an analysis of all the sources leading to your own
conclusion on the matter. In most genealogical database software there
is a Notes field that is suitable for this purpose.

Austin W. Spencer

Tamblyne...

I evaluate what I have, choose the best evidence or source(s), but
note the conflicts and inconsistencies, just in case they might come
up later for someone else, they will know I was aware of it, even if
it's a typo in a document or something like that. They might come to
a different conclusion, but the information will be there. I might
come across something later, too, that bears on the matter.

My aunt's research is "law" in my family. Unfortunately, I've already
found some problems with it, mostly from "stories" that she did not,
or was unable to, confirm. I think I have more resources than she
did, and perhaps she wasn't "anal" about it. But it's also very
possible that she understood how "locked in" the family is to the old
stories, and didn't want to mess with them.

I, apparently, don't have her respect for tradition.

I would highly recommend you get a copy of "Evidence! Citation &
Analysis for the Family Historian" by Elizabeth Shown Mills. It's a
great little book, not too expensive, and mine's already showing wear.
:-)

She also has recently put out something for citing web based sources,
and I think this was discussed recently here in this group. I haven't
got a copy of that yet, but should.

Good luck to you! :-)

singhals...

Well, My family tends to not-care where I found it, so in what I give
them, they have to take my word for it. If they have questions, they
can always ask. Then, too, I don't flatter myself that any of them will
actually hold on to what I give them past the next housecleaning. (g)

On my own record copy, I cite everything I consulted with a precis of
the relevant bits; even if Source T didn't mention it at all, I put in
"T did not address the issue." Keeps me from retracking, and I've never
seen anything wrong with having 4 people agree on something, the
hypothesis being the more people who agree the less likely it is to be
provably wrong.

Hugh Watkins...

not in downloaded gedcom

you risk seeing many copies or wrong data

Hugh W

singhals...

What? What? Hugh, Puh-leeeez, it's early!

*What* isn't in a d/l GED (and where'd I put my GED on-line anyway?) ...
and what's wrong with many copies?

Wrong data, well, ummm, if it's wrong, it's gonna be wrong no matter how
I cite it, isn't it?

Hugh Watkins...

which is why it is best to research original sources or their images
and double check other peoples stuff

before merging any gedcom or ftm files

printed books may be wrong too
Victorian genealogies may even be invented

quality first please
not quantity

Hugh W

singhals...

Oh, well, now that's different, innit? (g) You've missed my intended
point -- which was, I cite ALL the places I found information. Partly
this is to keep me from replowing planted ground and partly to keep
others from complaining that source blah-d-blah says differently, did I
see that?

Not to mention, we've all agreed that even original sources can be wrong

Hugh Watkins...

just give enough info to enable a stranger to independantly check the
reliability of your data

Some of my sources are mss in my possesion or stories told me in 1950ies

so I need tosay justthat

in FTM 2006 ctrl + S calls the source info dialog box
really easy and quick when you know how

Hugh W