How to Cite Census Record from Email Attachment

By Anonymous on Wed, 03/02/2016 - 14:21

Forums

I recently received an email containing a photocopy of a South Carolina census record that was found in a manuscript housed at a local archive. I'm not sure if I should use the EE citation method for e-mails, use the manuscript it was found in, or both? 

Can someone please clarify? 

Thank you. 

 

Submitted byEEon Wed, 03/02/2016 - 20:17

JHowe, you have two things to cite: 1) The census record to whatever extent you can, based upon the information supplied by your email correspondent. 2) The email itself.  Did your correspondent give you a citation for that locally held manuscript census?

Submitted byEEon Thu, 03/03/2016 - 08:22

JHowe, can you upload the images so we have something to work with? You also ask about using "the EE citation for emails."  Would you also tell us which EE model you are considering?  (There are situations in which email has to be handled one way or another, depending upon what you are dealing with; and in this case you don't seem to be taking your information from the email itself.)

Submitted byEEon Thu, 03/03/2016 - 08:51

JHowe, what you will be citing is not the manuscript census itself, but a published book that offers a facsimile. In EE, look up "facsimile reprint" in the index and that will point you to p. 709 (EE 12.77) that gives a pattern and a bit of discussion. That citation will be Layer 1 of your citation. If you then want to add a second layer to identify the person who supplied you with the photocopy, then certainly you can (EE 3.42). In our working notes, we can add anything we think will help us with our research. But in this case, the email is not an essential part of the citation. Normally, you would cite email only if you are taking information from that email itself.