Citing Eastern European Vital Records

Spencebucfan,

Presumably you have read the "Vital Registrations: International Section of EE that begins at EE 9.45. Did the Polish State Archives not provide any details for document number, collection name/number, etc., that you can use to adapt one of these formats? 

As an example, what do you think of this citation for the 1895 marriage in Lublin for Chaia Mala SZTETELMAN: “Lublin PSA Births 1839,41,70-1914; Marriages 1870-1918; Deaths 1831,70-1918; Divorces 1878-80,82-91,93-96,98,1900-03,” database, JRI-Poalnd (https://jri-poland.org/jriplweb.htm : accessed 1 Feb 2020) entry for Chaia Mala Sztetelman, 1895 Lublin, Poland marriage, akt 95; citing “Collection 35/1753/0/1.2/304, Księga Małżeństw [Lublin Book of marriages], 1893-1895, 189 images,” Akta stanu cywilnego Okręgu Bożniczego w Lublinie [Civil Registry Files of the Divine District in Lublin], image 127 (https://szukajwarchiwach.pl/35/1753/0/1.2/304/skan/medium/QeQbQ3HYVRf9VDifUJF3Vg : accessed 1 Feb 2020); data provided in partnership with JRI-Poland.

c0r8g30, I have to confess that you lost me with this citation—and the 25-page attachment with several hundred entries for people of the Sztetelman surname and variant spellings.

I used the details in your citation to "start from scratch" with a search for Chaia Mala Sztetelman, 1895, Lublin. I got one hit, as follows:

Working from this, our citation would be:

     1. Jewish Records Indexing—Poland, "Lublin PSA Births 1839,41,70-1914; Marriages 1870-1918; Deaths 1831,70-1918; Divorces 1878-80,82-91,93-96,98,1900-03,” database, JRI-Poland (https://jri-poland.org/jriplweb.htm : accessed 1 Feb 2020), entry for Chaia Mala Sztetelman, 1895, Lublin, marriage, act 95.

However, this hit does not cite any specific book or any of the other data that your citation places after the word "citing ..." If you obtained this background from elsewhere, your citation needs to say how and where you found it.

As we continue to work through the pieces of data you say was "cited" by the JRI-Poland website, we eventually come to another URL. When that second URL is used, we have an entirely different source—this time an imaged register.

It would be helpful here to review three basic principles:

• A single reference note can cite multiple sources, but each should be in its own sentence to indicate that they are different sources. This is especially critical when we are citing original records arranged in a complicated archival hierarchy.
• If we use an original register, we cite the original register.
• If we used a database entry to take us to the original, we typically cite the original. We do not cite the database entry itself unless there is a problem with it that needs to be noted. (As an analogy, when we cite something from a book, we cite the page on which the material appears but not the index that pointed us to that page.

In this case, the database you used is an entirely different website from the website that delivered the image. Apparently, you are citing the database not for its data (which the original provides) but to give it credit for pointing you to the original. That is good, but read on.

Unless there is something specific/unique about the information in the database that you need to record for posterity, the better practice would be to cite the original and then add an explanation in a separate sentence to say that an index to these records is available at the JRI-Poland site (with an appropriate citation to that site).

Also note:

• When we cite a website, we need to identify the entity that is responsible for that website's content. You need to do this for both the JRI-Poland site and the szukajwarchiwaach.pl site.
• The title of a website should be italicized, as we would do with the title of a book. In a long and dense citation such as the one you’ve drafted, especially one in a different language, readers need these visual cues to tell them what each set of words represent.
• When citing an image number at a website, that image number goes in the same field in which we would put the page number of a book. The image number would not go between the website title and (place of publication : date).

Hi EE - I too have a question about citing from these indexing sites. The one I use most often is geneteka (http://geneteka.genealodzy.pl/index.php). How would I cite an index entry that gives me the information I need based on what I already know from another family member?

For instance, Jan Stanisław Hilferding was my great-grandfather, yet there is no scan available at this point. I know the original document is what I need to see but I can't access it right now (small archive in Poland and very complicated payment method) - however, if I click on the three vertical dots in the final column, it tells me his (alleged) Christening date. Given that's all I have to go on for now, I want to cite it...but how? Here's the url: https://bit.ly/3aF5bOp. Any guidance you can give would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks :)

fhtess65, if you're citing a database entry when no image is available, then you're simply citing the database. Databases at a website are cited like chapters in a book of essays or articles by different authors. See the QuickStart Guide at the front of EE, page "The Basics: Publications: Print and Online."

Incidentally, when I queried your geneteka link for the name you gave, I got no results. Your URL, strangely, takes me to a YouTube screen with a warning message. I did not pursue it.

After studying the QuickStart Guide example, if you are still unclear, try to craft the citation yourself and include it in your response. Then we'll have specific details to work with.