repeating citation for fact cited previously.

Dear EE,

I searched through the forums for my topic and saw none. So, here it goes. I think I read somewhere that within a genealogy narrative it is not necessary to repeat a citiation for a fact that has already been cited. For example, a citation for a marriage of a daughter in one section of a genealogy being then cited again in the following section about a different daughter who witnessed that marriage. Teresa Mills

Submitted byEEon Tue, 06/14/2016 - 17:31

Teresa, the basic rule for citation is this: For every assertion we make that is not public knowledge, we identify our source. If you were reading A History of Seventh-Day Adventists in Polynesia and you found on p. 245 an assertion relevant to your research, how would you feel if the author—because he had already mentioned that point back on p. 39—just made the assertion on p. 245 without documentation? How would you know that he had documented the assertion on an earlier page? How would you know which earlier page carried the citation?

Once we have cited a source, we may use a short form of that source in future citations. But when we assert a "fact," we are obliged to provide evidence for it.