Citing a typeset of a transcription of a translation

By agilchrest on Sat, 08/10/2019 - 14:13

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This record has gone through a number of iterations all of which could have introduced errors. I want to be sure when I cite the marriage it that it is clear that this is three steps away from the original. I used EE 7.31 Typescripts of Registers as my guide. 

The record can be found on Ancestry here: https://tinyurl.com/y49sfars

The beginning of the "book" can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/yywvzzlx

In case the links don't work the recordset on Ancestry as "U.S. Dutch Reformed Church Records in Selected States, 1639-1989" New York>Clarkstown>Clarkstown, Book 50C

I did not include the Ancestry information in my citation because I haven't decided where I what to place the emphasis. Typically I emphasis the original record with Ancestry being the "repository" at the end of a citation. 

This is what I have come up with for the layer concerning the actual record.
 

Nicholas G Blauvelt, “The Marriage Records of The Reformed Dutch Churches of Tappen and Clarkstown, Rockland County, New York, 1694-1831” (typescript, 1932, The Holland Society, New York), volume 50-C, p. 46 in parenthesis bottom of page, entry 200, 1750, McDoegel [sic], Alexander marriage to McDonnell, Catarina [Catherine]; complied from Walter Kenneth Griffin’s compilation of the same title, 1909, New York, page 94 of translations made by Reverend David Cole D.D. circa 1884. Blauvelt notes that Cole had questions to what Catherine’s surname was recording it as McDonnell or Ouwell.

I am not sure about the punctuation surrounding "page 94" or if a qualifier should be added. 

Thank you,

Ann C Gilchrest

Submitted byEEon Sun, 08/11/2019 - 13:15

Ann, you do find some doozies.

In this case, there are so many issues your citation (or, at least, your working citation) needs to explain that I've taken a different tack from yours. You note that you did not include Ancestry in your citation at this point because you were trying to work through the other issues. However, when our identification of a source for our data is this complex, many users will be discouraged from wading through it all and will ignore it. And then there is that issue of how to fit in the long citation to Ancestry amid all the parts we already have.

Rather than trying to pack all the complications into a one-sentence citation, a cleaner approach would be to do a basic citation to the the typescript at Ancestry, and then add a discursive note or commentary that's cleanly laid out to encourage readers to consider critical issues. For example:

Ironically, amid all this, Griffin’s p. 11 (Blauvelt’s p. 5, image 8) cautions: “Please use this manuscript carefully. Do not … alter.” 😊

You’ll notice three other ways in which EE's approach differs from yours:

  • In the citation to the typescript, I omitted your reference to the volume number. There aren't 50-something volumes to that typescript. The typescript is volume 50-C of a much larger series that goes unidentified until you present the Ancestry part of the citation.
  • I omitted your “entry 200,” because I’m not sure (without spending another two hours studying this work)  that the compiler's (200) is actually an entry number for the marriage. There’s also another parenthetical 200 on the prior page.  Studying subsequent pages, we see, for example, that there are two occasions of (206), each of which include a number of marriage entries. There are also multiple entries for many other parenthetical numbers placed in the margin.
  • I’m not including your passage “compiled from [Griffin 1909] p. 94 of translations made by … Cole …. Blauvelt notes that Cole had questions to what Catherine’s surname was recording it as McDonnell or Ouwell.”  Trying to find that led me through a maze. Uncertainty over Catherine's surname is expressed on Blauvelt’s p. 46 that you are citing; but the title page also states that Cole added notes.  When I went looking for any notes that Cole might have added about Catherine, using the “p. 94” notation, I found nothing more.
  • Blauvelt’s p. 46, carries a right-margin notation “page 93” above the “M” section, which appears to refer to Griffin’s version. Blauvelt’s p. 47 presents a right-margin notation “page 94” but there’s only a one-line entry that has nothing to do with Catherine. To understand your reference to Griffin and the fact that it seems to be on Griffin’s 93 rather than 94, users of your citation would need to read the preface to the volume. That led to EE’s recommendation that the whole convoluted mess be explained in a discursive note added to the basic citation.

Thanks for giving everyone a great example to work through.

Incidentally, I inserted the citation as an snipped image from my Word document rather than trying to type it here because the brilliant IT engineers who create word-processors for online forums create limited formatting functions for us. Unfortunately, using SnagIt to snip from Word, then uploading it as an image through Drupal's website filter did fuzzy-up the text.

Submitted byagilchreston Sun, 08/11/2019 - 15:42

A very BIG thank you! I felt like I was creating a bigger mess than needed and could not see the tree for the forest.

Ann