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After reading the first two chapters of EE again, I am now more confused by FTM's source citations, even though they are based upon EE. Am I correct in thinking that the FTM Source citation detail is the same as Source List Entry and that the FTM Source citation text is the First Full Reference Note? I am having trouble with the entry fields on FTM and correlating them to get the appropriate citations according to EE. I was getting some elements correct, but missing others entirely. How do I add the phrase "accessed 24 Jun 2012" to be included within parentheses after the URL? Do I just go to the FTM Reference Note and tweak it there? Thank you.
Historybuff,
Historybuff,
I know exactly what you mean. About a year ago I started fixing my citations in FTM. I quickly came to the conclusion that it was much easier to do my citations free from and not use the templates in FTM. The main problem with the templates in FTM is that you can only have one template per source title. Which means every time you want to use that source title it will have the accessed date that you entered in the template.
I do a lot of my work from the source page. For source titles I group thing together. For example I have a source title "1910 U. S. Census" in the citation detail box I put the rest of the citation for example; Becker County, Minnesota, population schedule, Frazee, Enumeration District (ED) 54, p. 28A (stamped), dwelling 168, family 174, Wm Baer household; digital image 19, Ancestry.com, (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 29 May 2008); citing NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 689.
When you look at the Reference note box. The citation will print as it should without the italics which I can add in the reference note box. Another technique I use is I will have a source title called Minnesota BMDs or Naturalization's. In this situation I remove the "source title from the reference note box and add any italics and I am done. I use the citation text box as a place to put transcriptions from the document. The major advantage for me is that I can find sources. Prior to this I had over 1200 source titles I now have just over 200.
I hope this helps.
Ann Gilchrest
I am no authority, but I
I am no authority, but I believe that I'm operating at least close to what FTM intended by linking their concept to EE. I think census data is a good example.
I create a separate source for each type of census, and use a template to do so. Two consecutive entries on my source list might be:
1910 U.S. Census, Iowa, Muscatine County, Population Schedule; NARA Microfilm
1910 U.S. Census, Iowa, Polk County, Population Schedule; NARA Microfilm
Each of these sources has one or more source citations, which cover a particular page of the census data. The source details are higher level, such as census year, state, county, publisher location, etc.
The source citation has the detail, which I normally copy from the Ancestry.com screen (copy/paste). Example:
Database online. Year: 1880; Census Place: Liberty, Mitchell, Iowa; Roll: 356; Family History Film: 1254356; Page: 455D; Enumeration District: 304; Image: 0429.
On the source citation, there is also a citation text field. I tend to not fill this in much more than identifying which lines I'm interested in, because I have the image, and transcribing it to my citation seems pointless. That's probably a mistake, but with limited time, one I'm comfortable with, since FTM makes it very easy to bring up the linked document from a local copy or from online.
I think the key is starting with the correct template. To do that most easily, on the source list, click Add Source. Then, click the More button. There are categories of sources, so pick the closest one. Drill down through the lower lists until you find a template that matches what you're after.
Alternatively, instead of the More button, you can type "population schedule" or similar in the source template name, and that will filter the list to templates that have those terms. That's good once you get familiar with what sources are named, but the first method (More button) is better for beginners.
I don't know if this helped, or created more confusion. And it is just my best effort, so may not be correct. But I'm an IT guy, and it seems like I'm following the intent of both the designer of the software and ESM as best I can, working within the program's framework. I'm sure I need to change something, but I'm trying not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, to borrow a phrase.
HistoryBuff,
HistoryBuff,
You will have to make a decision as to how you want to enter your citations. Do you want to use the templates or not? For me it was a matter of being able to locate sources. Prior to combining my 1910 census into one source title and getting rid of the templates I had 67 source titles for the 1910 census. There are numerous discussions on several of the mailing lists about lumping source titles and whether or not to use templates in genealogy software. You can locate several of them by goggling something like source templates in genealogy software.
Ann