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From: "DeAnna Burghart" <>
Subject: RE: [TMG] source output form
Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2006 14:36:45 -0700
In-Reply-To: <7.0.0.16.2.20060629154854.04c95d18@acm.org>


On June 29 (what can I say -- I'm behind this week), Lee wrote:
>>The problem is when a reader finds their interpretation of a document is
different from yours and they are viewing the exact same document that you
referenced. If they see a different copy and the data is seen differently,
they would put the difference to the different copies. But if they see the
same copy and read it differently (assuming the resolution is reasonable)
then they may just disregard the rest of your data as unreliable.<<


And this, if I may be permitted a brief tirade, is where I think we may have
gotten our priorities skewed a bit in the effort to prove ourselves as a
science. Some of the citation models proposed these days are beginning to
approach outrageous. Why in the world do I need a full paragraph to properly
cite a census record viewed online in order to corroborate the reported
birthdate of a 2nd-degree cousin who will receive half a sentence in a
journal report? And heaven forfend that I should omit some critical detail
like the date I viewed the record (it might have been updated since then!!)
or the line number (what if they look at the OTHER Brown family on that
page?!!) or the fact that a subscription was required to view it.

It's one thing to properly report a source: It's on the 1910 Federal census,
NARA microfilm number blah, page X, family/dwelling Y. Oh, and by the way I
looked at Ancestry's digital copy of it. (Even that much is redundant -- do
we imagine that Ancestry has a non-digital copy?)

The trap we're too often falling into these days is something else entirely,
and it all seems to revolve around paranoia that people might think us not
very astute researchers, readers, or genealogists if they interpret
something differently than we do.

The fact of the matter is, though, that genealogy is largely interpretation.
Even the facts rarely tell us the truth -- we have to use our own brains for
that. It's puzzle-solving, which is where the fun comes in, at least for me.
And it's quite likely that if you gave all the genealogists in the world the
same census copies -- cited or not -- we'd end up looking like Truman's
famous line of economists.

"...if they see the same copy and read it differently (assuming the
resolution is reasonable) then they may just disregard the rest of your data
as unreliable." They might. And perhaps they'd be entitled to that opinion.
Maybe I'm really not very good at this. So be it. Or perhaps they would be
making a rush to judgment -- do we throw out the information in entire
county histories because the author or editor botched a generation or a
birthdate? I don't. I simply redouble my efforts to validate the information
before accepting it as gospel -- something we should be doing anyway.

If one is submitting to a genealogical magazine -- or any scholarly
publication -- then it makes sense to follow their standards. I observe,
however, that even the NGS Quarterly usually opts for much simpler
notations. In Volume 93, No. 2, June 2005, for instance, I note the
following:

* Footnote 16, p. 91 -- FHL microfilm number, no mention of Salt Lake City
repository.

* Footnote 16, p.96-7 -- an incidental remark that a source is "online at
<url>" -- there is nothing further about dates accessed or website authors.

* Footnote 20, p. 97 -- 1880 census index -- accessed online via Family
Search ... again, no concerns over posting dates accessed.

* Footnote 37, p. 100 -- census image "viewed at
http://www.heritagequestonline.com";

I could continue in the same vein. There are a few footnotes that contain
the (in my opinion extraneous) details like NARA microfilms being warehoused
in Washington D.C. or FHL microfilms being vaulted in Salt Lake City, but
the vast majority are edited for the brevity illustrated above -- they
provide the information required to find the evidence. I couldn't access
heritagequestonline offline. I would expect that an FHL microfilm is
available through the FHL and that an NARA record is likewise available
through the archives. Ancestry is what it is, and I'm not likely to worry
much over whether an image has been updated if I go to double-check
something -- either I'll see the same thing, or I'll see something different
(in which case I'll discuss my disagreement with the original author in my
*own* footnote in my *own* report). I can only assume from the plethora of
far more readable footnotes in publications like NGS Quarterly that these
more abbreviated forms are perfectly acceptable even to sourcing doyen
Elizabeth Mills herself, and that we could thus be just as easily served by

Leung Tung Wong household, 1880 U.S. census, Hampden Co., Mass., pop. sch.,
Ward 7 Holyoke, p. 24 (stamped p. 347A), dw. 169, fam. 208, NA microfilm T9,
roll 535; viewed at http://www.ancestry.com.

... or any one of a dozen variations of that. Who among us would be unable
to find and examine the proper record with that citation (which is modeled
directly after my Footnote 37 reference above, abbreviations and all)?

TMG gives us extraordinary power and flexibility in our sourcing
capabilities, for which I'm tremendously grateful. But with great power
comes great responsibility. ;P When I found myself obsessing over making
sure that the *line* numbers of my census citations had changed
appropriately for each fact that I was citing from the census reading, I
began to realize that things had gone too far.

If we want to encourage newbies to take up genealogy and enjoy as we do, we
need to be a smidge less uptight about all of this sourcing business. Source
accurately, yes. Source completely. Source *usefully*, and analyze
compellingly. But don't source obsessively. We are, I think, in danger of
becoming a bit obnoxious about all of this. <g>

Herein concludes my (not so brief after all) tirade. :D Lee is certainly not
wrong, and he (and Terry and so many others) are a veritable font of
information and assistance. But I think we need to stop *worrying* about it
quite so much. Examining just a few issues of a few prominent genealogy
publication quickly makes it obvious that there are many acceptable ways of
doing this, and that most of them aren't as burdensome as some of the forms
we find ourselves concocting. Far more important for us to spend our time
*analyzing* those sources and explaining our conclusions. Which is the fun
part anyway.

Cheers!
DeAnna

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DeAnna Burghart
TMG Shortcuts, Variables and Report Cheat Sheets (Word and PDF)
http://members.cox.net/danieleb765/genealogy/


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