Citing Online Sources: Difference between revisions

'''This is the syllabus for a class taught by [[User:RaymondRS|Robert Raymond]]''' and represents his private opinions. Requests for changes should be made on this page's Discussion page.<br>

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.  

 

 

• The name of the collection is in quotes, like a chapter title.  

• There are two types of derivative sources in this collection: “database and digital images.” In judging the quality of a derivative source, digital images are better than databases and indexes.  

• The title of the website, like the title of a book, is in italics.  

• Instead of a city, the website home page is the place of publication. Leave a space before the colon to avoid confusion.  

• No publisher is required. In place of the publication year, specify the day you accessed the page.  

• In place of a page number, explain how to find the page. In this example, the instructions are “search for Lyndon Baines Johnson, died 22 January 1973.”  

• A semicolon separates the citation to the derivative source from the citation to the source of the source. Usually, you will quote the source specified on the website. If you know the steps to find the original, use them as the source of the source. This hypothetical example (you can’t really browse original Texas death certificates) indicates that the certificate is filed by number, 00340, in the certificates for Bexar County, kept by the Texas Bureau of Vital Statistics, stored at the Department of Health in Austin, Texas.  

 

2. “Idaho Marriages, 1842-1996,” ''Ancestry.com'' (http://www.ancestry.com&nbsp;: accessed 18 July 2010), search for Alonzo Raymond, married 1922; from “Upper Snake River Family History Center and Ricks College (Rexburg, Idaho),” citing “marriage book at the County Courthouse located in Bannock Co., ID in Volume 11 on Page 55.”  

 

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

1. . Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, PDF image (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2007), 10, 43.  

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

3. . Ibid., 47-8, 52.  

4. . “The OAH Magazine of History Style Sheet,” Organization of American Historians (http://www.oah.org&nbsp;: accessed 17 July 2010). Diana Hacker, “History: Documenting Sources,” Research and Documentation Online (http://dianahacker.com&nbsp;: accessed 17 July 2010).  

5. . See The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 597; hereinafter cited as CMOS. Genealogists should use Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 7th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 162. The title page of the 7th edition explains that it is “Chicago Style for Students and Researchers.”

6. . CMOS, 661-2 and Turabian, 177-9. 7. . Mills, Evidence Explained, 301.  

8. . Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence! Citation &amp; Analysis for the Family Historian (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1997), 14.  

9. . Kathy Grant, “Entering Sources in nFS -- Tips &amp; Improvements,” FHCNET, Yahoo discussion group, 5 June 2010, 8:17 pm (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FHCNET&nbsp;: accessed 18 July 18, 2010).  

10. . Gary Templeman, Ibid., 6 June 2010, 2:57 am. Venita Roylance, Ibid., 6 June 2010, 5:36 pm.  

11. . Gaylon Findlay, Ibid., 6 June 2010, 8:23 pm.