Citations With My Phone

Citation is a crucial part of the genealogical research process.

But let's be honest it slows down the data acquisition process. Researchers get excited about locating information. They rarely get as excited about capturing the raw data from which to craft a citation.

Yet there needs to be a middle ground.

This week I've been at the Family History Library in Salt Lake and when I can I'm using digital media to capture genealogical information, including taking pictures of book pages with my phone.

Tracking the source is crucial. I've been taking images from a variety of ortssippenbucher from Ostfriesland, Germany. To track the book from which the picture was made, I wrote the name of the town on a small slip of paper and inserted that over part of the page I did not need. I used that piece of paper on every image from that book.

Then after the pages from the book of interest were taken, I took pictures of the title page of the book. I could have written a little more than the name of the village on the piece of paper, but that was enough to allow me to tag which book was used when taking a specific picture.

I also made certain (not shown in the image) that the page number was also clear in each picture.

My images sync from my phone to Google Drive and my laptop so I have them almost immediately.

And I also have enough information from which to craft a citation later.

A Citation Question-Separate Publications Bound Together

Digital images are great, but sometimes they create slight confusion when crafting a citation from them.

I located a reference in a Depression era state university report to my grandmother's sister. Apparently putting her name on the list of students of junior standing was done prematurely. My aunt wasn't the only one in this situation and it's not clear if she didn't make sufficient progress that semester due to academic problems, financial problems or something else. It's very possible that money temporarily ran out, although she did eventually graduate.

I'm trying to craft a reasonable citation before I put the image on the blog. While I don't cite in proper format here, I do need to include all essential details of where the document was located. I located it on Mocavo.com and Mocavo.com's "publication" of this report appears to have been a digital copy of a bound volume of reports from several years housed in a university library. 

I might not have realized this if I had simply copied the image with Aunt Margaret's name and stopped. The fact that her reference was on page 8 and the image number from the Mocavo.com publication was over 800 should have been a clue that I was looking at either a serial publication or a bound copy of several individual items. People wonder why scanning covers of books is necessary. Materials like this make it clear.

It was clear to me that the cover was not the original, but rather was the result of items that had been sent by the university to the bindery to be bound for better preservation. 

But this brings me back to the original question: "What do I need in this citation?"

While I haven't crafted the citation yet, I think it needs to include more than just the reference to the publication name that Mocavo.com has given to this bound item. Websites come and go. My citation needs to include:

• the website-Mocavo.com, date of access, and the publication name Mocavo.com assigned to this publication.
• reference to the university library that houses the original from which the digital image was made.
• complete name and date of original publication.
• Title, author, etc.
• Specific report which mentions the individual in question--that's necessary as it gets to which state school she attended and helps others find this publication if the original bound one cannot be found.

Some may say that the university library portion of this reference is not necessary if the complete date and place of original publication is provided. Perhaps. But it makes it easier for someone else (or me) to later locate the original if necessary. 

Stay tuned. Aunt Margaret's "change" in classification has created a few issues for me. It probably created a few issues for her as well, but I don't have any first hand knowledge of those.

Common Knowledge

Genealogists are aware of the importance of citations in their research and in their writing.

Sometimes the question is asked "where do I draw the line when I write something that is common knowledge?" Does one have to cite common knowledge? What is common knowledge really depends upon the audience.

The general rule of thumb I use is, "the more specific the statement" the more likely it is that I need to include a citation.

If I say that Hancock County, Illinois, was formed in 1825, that (to me) qualifies as common knowledge, particularly if my audience is of a genealogical or historical bent. That date can easily be located in any of a variety of references, hopefully which are correct.

However, if I make a statement about the county being formed in 1825 and then start to specifically state how the boundaries are laid out (mentioning specific lines, townships, sections, etc.), what other county court has jurisdiction over the county residents until a county government can be set up, and other details--then a citation is needed. The year of formation can easily be referenced for those who are unaware of it. The specific details need a citation.

Is it fussing over details? Perhaps. But chances are if you are discussing all those details of the county's formation you used a specific reference other than Ancestry.com's Red Book, the old Handy Book for Genealogists, etc. and you should let your readers know what you've used.

And if you are writing "common knowledge" from memory, even more citations may be helpful as it never hurts to "doublecheck memory."

It Was Yoe and Not FamilySearch-Why Line Numbers Are Good to Include in 1920 Census Citations

It's easy to assume that the transcriber is wrong and there has been a mistake made on the part of the human who copied the record. That's not always true.

This is the entry on FamilySearch in their 1920 census for my Neill great-grandparents and their children. For some apparent reason, they have been "lumped" in with the adjacent Young family as shown in this screen shot. On the surface, it's tempting to think that FamilySearch has it wrong and that two households have been "merged."

Why are they lumped together? Who has it wrong? It's not the fault of FamilySearch. It is the fault of Adelbert Yoe, the enumerator.

Yoe apparently got off on his numbers.  The entry above linked me to an image of the 1920 census which I had actually already located (1920 U. S. Census, Hancock County, Illinois, St. Albans Township, ED 25, sheet 7A, Charlie Neill, household, lines 42-47). That image of the actual census is shown below. To be honest, I had never noticed the previous household headed by Elbert Young had the same dwelling and family numbers as the household headed by Charles T. Neill.

The lumping together appears to have been a simple error on the part of the census taker. If the households had been actually living together in the same dwelling, the dwelling number would have been the same and the family numbers would have been different--and it's pretty clear that these are two separate families.

My citation for this entry includes the line numbers because the line numbers are unique to this household--the other numbers are not. My analysis of this entry should include a brief discussion of how the dwelling and household numbers are repeated for two families in a row and why I think this is an error.

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I'm a strong believer in citations and in my work (and in Casefile Clues) I cite material in the spirit of Evidence Explained. Here on the Rootdig blog, I have a different philosophy. Posts made here have enough information that the reader could locate where the material was obtained.

Citing a Copy of a Copy

One of the items used in the latest issue of Casefile Clues was a copy of a deed that was used as an exhibit in a court case from 1924. The deed was one of several brought in as evidence as they helped in determining ownership to a farm whose owner was deceased. I decided that I really did not need to obtain a copy of the actual deed from the land records.

Why Not?

One reason is that a person has to simply draw the line somewhere when obtaining additional records takes time and costs money. The second is "how necessary is it to get the original?" in the context of the research problem. I was using the court case to determine relationship and establish residences of descendants as of the date of the case. The original deed was not going to assist with that. The content of the deed was not debated during the court case and all parties agreed as to its content. I decided that the record copy of the deed (which was what was in the deed book) had a minimal chance of providing any "new" information and that the record copy was likely a typed transcription of the original deed anyway.

But How to Cite It?

That was a slight problem, but really not a difficult one. I could not cite the original deed--I don't have it.I could not cite the record copy from the Adams County Recorder's Office--I don't have that either. What I do have is the copy that was an exhibit in a court case--so that's what I cite:

Adams County, Illinois, Circuit Court Files, Case 5228 (1924), Bertha Janssen, et al. v. Bernhard Dirks, et al., “Exhibit B” Quit claim deed from Anke T. Dirks to Heipke Dirks; County Clerk’s Office, Quincy; FHL microfilm 1,904,526.

Not really very difficult.

The good stuff was the rest of the court case and that's what we discussed in the issue of Casefile Clues in which this document was included.

Being Frank about Dwelling and Family ID Numbers in Citations

This 1910 census image for two families living within the same dwelling makes an excellent point about why 1910 census (and other years) citations should include the dwelling number and the family number. Sometimes more than one family is living in the same dewlling.

There are two families living at 110 W 112th Place in Chicago, Illinois, in 1910--the family of Frank Vanderlinden and the family of Thomas Frame. While it may seem unnecessary to include both numbers in the citation, it makes it clear to which household the researcher is referring. In this case, there are no two people with the exact same name in each household, but if relatives have two separate households within the same dwelling, there could be a repetition of names.

Of course, three of the individuals in the household at 110 W 112th Place had the first name of Frank. Here are citations created for the first Frank and the last Frank.

Frank Vanderlinden:

1910 U. S. Census, Cook County, Illinois, population schedule, City of Chicago, Ward 33 (part of), enumeration district (ED) 33, dwelling 110, family 272, Frank Vanderlinden; digital image, Ancestry.com, (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 5 April 2013); citing NARA microfilm publication T624, roll. 280.

Frank Frame:

1910 U. S. Census, Cook County, Illinois, population schedule, City of Chicago, Ward 33 (part of), enumeration district (ED) 33, dwelling 110, family 273, Frank Frame; digital image, Ancestry.com, (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 5 April 2013); citing NARA microfilm publication T624, roll. 280.

From a genealogical standpoint, it would have been better if they had viewed themselves as one family--then all relationships would have been given with respect to Frank Vanderlinden--and the Frames would have been clearly identified as his father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law. But one does not always get that lucky.

Citation reminder: We are a strong believer in citing genealogical source material in the spirit of Evidence Explained. However, we choose not to include properly formatted citations in these blog posts. There's always enough information in the post to create a citation and full citations are included in my how-to newsletter Casefile Clues. 

Cut off Cards

When a person doesn't know what a record is supposed to look like, it can be difficult to determine just what is missing. In fact, sometimes it can be difficult to determine if anything is missing at all. The World War I draft card below is for my uncle, John Goldenstein. It is missing something.

World War I Draft Card of John Goldenstein, Adams County, Illinois--obtained on Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), 4 December 2012

 When this card is compared to a "complete" card (see below), one can see the signature after item 12 on the left hand side. It appears that the right hand side of the card in the image above also has some issues. I've left feedback at Ancestry.com about the images (the problem appears to be with cards from Adams County, Illinois), but it is difficult to tell how long it will be before the images are fixed. The digitization of the cards from the microfilm is an automated process.

World War I Draft Card of Samuel Haase, Hancock County, Illinois--obtained on Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), 4 December 2012

The card above appears to be a complete card.

And it all reiterates the point of citation: not all versions of a record are created equally.

Missing Stones and Missing Pages

A recent blog post ("I've Never Been There But I Have Seen the Stone") discussed sketches of tombstones that appear in a Sargent genealogy from 1895. This book is available digitally in at least two locations, the Family History Library's website and Archive.org. Any citation to the digital form of the book should indicate  the actual site from which it was obtained. 

The pictures of the tombstones that were used to illustrate the blog post appear on a page originally inserted between pages 32 and 33. This page (and the blank one preceding it) are shown in these two illustrations from Archive.org's "page turner" viewing option. 

The first screen shot shows page 32 and the "blank" page on the right. The blank page on the right is actually the  back side of the page that has the pictures. Typical for the era, pictures were printed on pages that often did not have text on the reverse.

Hugh Sargent, of Courteenhall, Northamptonshire and his descendants in England, Aaron Sargent, Somerville, Mass. (1895)--obtained digitally on Archive.org (http://www.archive.org) on 3 December 2012, p. 32.

This set of images shows page 33 on the right and the un-numbered page that contains the tombstone images.

Hugh Sargent, of Courteenhall, Northamptonshire and his descendants in England, Aaron Sargent, Somerville, Mass. (1895)--obtained digitally on Archive.org (http://www.archive.org) on 3 December 2012, p. 32.

The image below comes from the PDF version of the book that was made from the item in the collection of the Family History Library. The view was made in Adobe Acrobat. There is nothing between pages 32 and 33. The picture either was removed from the book by a patron before digitization or it was missed. I am suspecting the latter. 

Hugh Sargent, of Courteenhall, Northamptonshire and his descendants in England, Aaron Sargent, Somerville, Mass. (1895)--obtained digitally in PDF format on FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org) on 3 December 2012, p. 32.

It never hurts to look at more than one version of any item, be it in print or digital format. There's a reason why we suggest that source citation include the precise venue in which the item was published, including the website and the date.

Not all digital versions may be created equally. Cite your sources.

This makes me think that there might even be justification for including which facility was used to reference a printed book as well.