Citing Online Sources: Difference between revisions

Citing online sources is easier than you might think. Citing online sources in the new FamilySearch tree is also easy, even if it ain’t pretty. In this class you will learn how to cite online sources generally, with particular focus on the new FamilySearch tree. You’ll learn particular examples from FamilySearch.org and from Ancestry.com.  

To fully benefit from this class, attendees should have access to the New FamilySearch, know how to use it, and understand why citing sources is important.  

Citations exist to satisfy two needs. A citation should allow you to locate the source and to judge the quality of the source. You need to be able to find and check sources. Conclusion may look suspicious. (“Was my grandfather really born one month after his parents married?”). Or you may have reached a different conclusion. (“My sources indicate 1821, not 1820.”) You need to be able to judge the correctness of a genealogy by looking at the quality of the sources used.  

In forward looking disciplines like science and medicine it is easy to meet these two needs. It is easy to locate cited sources because the sources are journals. The quality of the source is easily determined by looking at the author’s name and the publication date. Is the author a well known expert, qualified to address the subject? Was the journal published recently?  

Genealogists face unique needs in satisfying the two purposes of citations.  

Because genealogical sources are difficult to examine in person, many have been transcribed, microfilmed, or digitized. These copies are called derivative sources. Because the quality of a derivative depends heavily on the quality of the original and the type of derivative, the citation needs two parts: a citation of the derivative, including its type, and a citation to the original. We sometimes call the original “the source of the source.”  

You should feel free to use any style that meets the needs of genealogists.  

Citing online sources adds additional challenges. The World Wide Web is like a great desert covered in shifting sand. Hills and valleys move with the wind. Trees, rocks, and other landmarks come and go. Oases form and evaporate. Trails disappear. The web even has intentional mirages that suddenly appear and then are gone. Citations must account for these possibilities to the extent possible.  

Cite online sources as you would a book. Cite FamilySearch.org historical collections and Ancestry.com databases as if they were chapters in a book.  

When a historical record collection can be searched, the derivative type is “database,” “index,” or similar term. When a collection has digital images, “digital images” is the type of the derivative. Consider this citation to the death certificate of former president, Lyndon Baines Johnson:  

Notice the different parts of the citation:  

This address will also stop working when the beta is complete.  

The source of the source is even more important for databases without images. When a database does not have images, you cannot tell if there are indexing errors. The source of the source citation in the following example tells you where to get a photocopy of the original record.  

Unlike the Texas Death example, this source of the source shows the typical practice. Simply “specify whatever the database gives as its source.”  

Make use of the browser’s drop down list of past entries. Copy and paste frequent sources from a separate document. Enter sources for the individual rather than for each event. Enter limited information. Enter citations into the notes so you can format as desired and synchronize with desktop genealogy data.  

The illustrations on the following page show my method: place the entire citation into the Comments box. I’ve duplicated some information in other boxes; strictly speaking, this is not necessary.  

To communicate the quality of a source, a citation needs to specify the source of the source. Sometimes it may be necessary, add a comment. Cite online sources as you would a book. Citations must account for the constantly changing nature of the web. FamilySearch, Ancestry.com, and similar websites publish collections or databases that should be handled like chapters in a book. If a website makes it impossible to add a good source-of-the-source, reuse the citations provided by the website.  

2. . Ibid., 87, 142, 209, 272, 388, 407, 470, 633.