Does EE have a "decision tree" for better picking the correct template?

NorwegianSardines:

In answer to your overarching question (Do Evidence Style templates have a “decision tree” for each template?) the answer is no. When working with historical documents— trillions of records created across hundreds of years by many different cultures, existing in original and derivative forms, not to mention the plethora of media through which we now access those records—there are just too many variances to fit into a simple if-this, then-that thought map.  

Beyond that, a fundamental principle of working with historical documents is the absolute need to thoughtfully analyze each source, the information it offers, and the reliability of each piece of information.  The decision tree for that is the Evidence Analysis Process Map that appears in both EE and Stripped Bare.

You quote from EE’s and Stripped Bare’s Template 10:

"Birth or Death Certificate (Not a Family Artifact) … When you obtain a certificate via a third party, not from the record office, then you are citing an artifact in personal possession (template 7).”

Then you ask:

Q: “Define "third party"! If the record comes from a company that was hired to take on the volume of work needed to action a request for a record are they a "third party".

A: When it comes to birth and death certificates, our “third party” source might be (say) a collection of papers we inherited from our parents; or our mother’s second-cousin Cousin Genie who obtained a certificate years ago from who-knows-where; or a random image we find online in somebody’s tree. 

So: let me now ask you a question: What are the defining characteristics across these third-party types? There are two: uncertain provenance; and potential unreliability.

In such cases, we did not personally obtain the document through official channels. Therefore,

• We don’t know for certain what agency the certificate came from, considering that (a) in many U.S. states, certificates even at the local level have a state letterhead and (b) other states (as you point out) have removed older documents from the original agency to a state archive. 
• We cannot be certain that someone has not altered the image that we now have.

Therefore, we do not cite this as an official record we personally received from the agency that holds the record, an agency responsible for providing “true” copies.  We treat this item as a personal artifact.  Template 7: Private Holdings (Artifact or Manuscript Document) supplies the fields needed to describe the details that fit the uncertainties introduced when records come to us “unofficially.”

If we order a certificate directly from an official agency, we know where that certificate came from and we know it is an official copy. If, say, we engage LexisNexis VitalChek to create the order for us, the conditions are the same. To quote from the VitalChek home page (https://www.vitalchek.com/v/):

• “VitalChek is the exclusive online partner of over 450 governing agencies.”
• “Your order is shipped directly from the agency to you.”

VitalChek provides the online interface through which we can easily place the order. The government agency supplies the document. The agency mails the document. We know exactly what agency sent it (provenance) and we know it is an official copy.  Therefore, we use Template 12, for birth and death certificates received from the agency that creates teh record.

If we wish, we can also add a sentence stating that we ordered the document through LexisNexis VitalCheck. In our personal research notes, we can add anything we think might help us in the future after our recollection of a record or a situation has gone cold.  There are no citation police to dictate or overrule our personal thoughts and analyses.  

Q: If the holder of the certificate is not the same institution as the one that issued the certificate, such as a State archive that handles the certificates for small counties or other entities.  Is the State a Third party, and if we still use template 12 where do we note that the certificate came from the state not the "creator"

A: If the holder of the certificate is a state archive, then that is the agency to cite. Within that archive, the collection of certificates will be arranged according to archive protocols. That archive and its document-arrangement is what must be cited if the record is to be re-locatable.  In Evidence Style, Template 8: Formal Archives (Artifact or Manuscript Document) provides a basic pattern.

When a certificate is the state archives, we obviously cannot cite it in the same manner that we would cite a certificate obtained from the state or county bureau of vital records. If we did so, then the record would not be obtainable by anyone using our citation because that office does not hold the document that is now in the state archives.

Q:  “I’m used to having a ‘Decision Tree’ to help guide me … and others who are

•  trying to do their best to gather the right information and create a close proximity to a good EE citation, but are

• not professional and are just happy to have found something telling them when their distant relative was born”

A.  NorwegianSardine, can we please, seriously, rethink both of those bulleted thoughts?

Bullet 1:

The goal of citation is not to ‘create a close proximity to a good Whatever Style citation.’ That would have been our goal with a classroom research paper that had to meet the teacher or professor’s dictates. That’s not our goal as adult, mature, independent researchers.

A citation to a historical source (our identification of that source) has two purposes:

1. It should enable a user to relocate the source.
2. It should enable a user to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the source.

The thoughtfulness that we put into a citation should not be focused on some rigid diagram or formula that we think will ensure that we ‘do things exactly right.’ 

The thoughtfulness we put into a citation should focus upon Nos. 1 and 2. Indeed, most of our thought process should be directed toward No. 2: the characteristics of the source that affect its credibility and reliability. 

EE and Stripped Bare offer guidance to help researchers fulfill those two purposes. But Evidence Style citations are not rigid formulas to follow.  The templates offered by EE and Stripped Bare allow flexibility. They feature flexibility. Within twelve of the fifteen chapters of EE, the specialized discussions of each source category all explain and demonstrate why flexibility is needed. The emphasis is always flexibility because sources themselves are not rigid formulaic entities.

Bullet 2:

Reliability of research does not depend upon whether someone is a professional or not. The two purposes of source identification exist regardless of the status of the researcher.

If someone is simply “happy to have found something telling them when their distant relative was born,” they are likely not to create a citation at all because they have not yet reached the point of understanding how and why thoughtful citations help themselves avoid bad information and bad decisions. If they create a citation, it might simply be “birth certificate,” with no further details. That’s a start. That’s where most of us started.

Stripped Bare offers beginning-level guidance to those who are ready to grow beyond that. Evidence Explained offers far more detailed guidance. But, no decision tree can cover all the vagaries of historical sources.