Creator or Owner?

By Hendrickson on Wed, 08/31/2022 - 17:32

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I recently received  a collection of some random family artifacts. Most of what I have are various trinkets owned by deceased family members such as a wallet, figurines, a souvenir spoon, military medals, etc. None of them were created by the person who originally owned them.

Perhaps I am overthinking this but in trying to cite them I started wondering how we differentiate between items that were created by someone vs. simply owned by someone. Or do we? From most of the examples in the book for objects of these types we start with the author/creator and in some cases it appears the owner.

Here’s an example of a piece in my collection. How do we tell that Hazel Smith was not the creator and just merely owned it? 

Hazel Smith, Ivory giraffe figurine; Smith–Jones Family Collection, box 1, item C; privately held by My Name [address for private use]; originally owned by Hazel Smith; it was passed down to Hazel’s daughter upon her death and then to her granddaughter in 2022.

Submitted byEEon Wed, 08/31/2022 - 20:06

Hello, Hendrickson.

You are right that Hazel Smith was not the creator. Whatever source we're citing, if there's no known or identified creator, we leave that field blank. You can keep Hazel Smith the focus of the citation by making her name possessive. Then you could eliminate the phrase, mid-citation, that repeats the same:

Hazel Smith's ivory giraffe figurine; Smith–Jones Family Collection, box 1, item C; privately held by My Name [address for private use]; originally owned by Hazel Smith; it was passed down to Hazel’s daughter upon her death and then to her granddaughter My Name in 2022.

 

Submitted byHendricksonon Thu, 09/01/2022 - 10:08

Thanks EE.

Initally, I had considered leaving that field blank and doing something like this:

Ivory giraffe figurine; Smith–Jones Family Collection, box 1, item C; privately held by My Name [address for private use]; originally owned by Hazel Smith; it was passed down to Hazel’s daughter upon her death and then to her granddaughter in 2022.

But then I saw examples in the book (for jewelry) and wasn't sure it was the right move.