Digital film numbers

By cryptoref on Mon, 10/03/2022 - 09:12

Forums

I've just learned something today and it causes my OCD great consternation. There is a great series of school enumeration records in the 1920's in Oklahoma. They give a listing of every student, along with their date of birth. You can follow a child's progress over the years, as they did the enumeration every year in January. Even better they are all filmed and indexed at FamilySearch so it's a great resource if you are in Oklahoma.

So here are two citations for the 1920 and 1921:

Bryan County, Oklahoma, Superintendent of Schools, “School enumeration record, 1920,” School District no 72 Durant North Ward, January 1920, no page, line 132, Augie Melton; imaged at FamilySearch, “School enumeration records, 1918-1921” (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSM9-JWF9-8 ), digital film 007762614 > image 204 of 336; citing Byron County Courthouse, Durant, Oklahoma.

Bryan County, Oklahoma, Superintendent of Schools, “School enumeration record, 1920,” School District no 72 Durant North Ward, January 1921, no page, line 149, Augie Melton; imaged at FamilySearch, “School enumeration records, 1918-1921” (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSM9-JWN3-K ), digital film 007762614 > image 262 of 274; citing Byron County Courthouse, Durant, Oklahoma.

My discovery is that digital film numbers are not unique. That is the digital film points to different sets of images (note the 336 versus 274). I understand what has happened, the digital film number references the underlying microfilm items. In this case their are four items on the microfilm, years 1918-1921. 

Soooo, do I include the microfilm number and item, not include, or do something different.

This relates to my previous question, https://www.evidenceexplained.com/node/1869, where I asked if we need the digital film number, and that is certainly yes. 

While I think the citation gets one to the right place, that same number pointing to different sets of images worries me.

 

Submitted byEEon Mon, 10/03/2022 - 18:44

Cryptoref, you've found a doozie. I've tried to cite this collection a couple of different ways and the numbers are indeed wonky. I'm also not able to find Augie on line 132. That ark for 1920 does bring up image 204 of 336, but line 132 is for Rosa LeFlore.

Aside from Rosa vs. Augie, I can't improve upon what you've done—when trying to cite the named database and the ark.

Another approach would be to cite the digital film number directly, though it entails yet another set of image numbers!

Bryan County, Oklahoma, Superintendent of Schools, “School enumeration record, 1920,” School District no 72 Durant North Ward, January 1920, no page, line 132, Rosie LeFlore; imaged at FamilySearch, digital film 007762614 > image 838 of 1486; citing Byron County Courthouse, Durant, Oklahoma.

The downside to this is that the user has to go to FamilySearch > Search > Catalog and type in the digital film number, then choose the number again from the resulting list.

 

 

Submitted bycryptorefon Mon, 10/03/2022 - 22:36

Well first, I transposed the links so Augie is on the reverse numbers (1920 is 149 and 1921 is 132). I REALLY do need an editor :) Does anyone know of a good editor?

That said, it really grates on my OCD that there isn't an easy way to point at the record. I "think" that it's best to go with my original, as even though there is some ambiguity, that ambiguity is handled, hopefully, by the FamilySearch internals.

What pains me even more is that this is most likely the case for EVERY digital film number where the original microfilm had multiple items on the film. That also means that those early microfilms that had totally unrelated items will share the same digital film number. The ARK will point to a different set, but if anyone does a list of digital film numbers it might get exciting.