Citation Issues

How to use source information given by Ancestry?

(I have previewed this post twice and it looked fine both times.  Keeping my fingers crossed.)

I think I am in analysis paralysis due to too much information!  I found a record for my great-greatgrandfather's registration for the Civil War draft (Union) on Ancestry.  I choose to believe Ancestry is trying to be helpful, but they present two different listings of source information (well, not totally different) that leave me wondering how to put together an "EE-approved" citation.

Quick Lesson #12 - Rabbit Hole

Dear Elizabeth,

Thank-you for your generosity in sharing your Quick Lessons. As we sat around the fire pit in Second LIfe's Just Genealogy we studied:

Elizabeth Shown Mills, “QuickLesson 12: Chasing an Online Record into Its Rabbit Hole,” Evidence Explained: Historical Analysis, Citation & Source Usage (http://www.evidenceexplained.com/content/quicklesson-12-chasing-an-online-record-into-its-rabbit-hole: [access date]).

 

Multiple or single use of (census) citations

I don't know if this question is in the right forum or not.

 

Let’s say that you have a family of four, the Joneses, in the 1920 census (Really it could be any census year). You create a citation for Mr. Jones. Now what? Do YOU reuse the citation that you created for Mr. Jones for Mrs. Jones and the two children? Or do you create a unique citation for the remaining three members of the family?

 

Citizenship and Alien registration files

I am trying to cite a Citizenship file that I received from USCIS. It contains multiple documents including a request for information from a relative (a document I need to reference for the familial relationship), a duplicate certificate of naturalization, petition for naturalization, Alien registration form, and other documents.

This file is different for the naturalization records that I would get from NARA and therefore the citation should be different. I presume this file would have the same citation format as an Alien Registration file.

Main file:

Passenger Arrival List / National Archives / Digital Image

Can someone show me how they reference a Passenger Arrival List (NARA digital image) that was viewed on Ancestry.com?  I want my sourcing to be as professional as possible.  Please be very clear what is the Source Information that goes in the initial template and what is the citation detail and take one step further to show complete reference note output. 

 

Here is what FTM has done automatically for me as the output in the Reference Note section.

Latin abbreviations

I am citing some Parish Registers from Ireland. The register title is in Latin and for the most part the childs names are in Latin and occasionally the a parents name and sponsors name are in Latin. The priest used the following abbreviations fa for fila meaning daughter and fus for filius meaning son. Is this a common abbreviation or should it be noted in my citation.

Thank you,

Ann  

Swedish Record or How to Cite a Record Viewer

I am struggling with how to cite digital images of Swedish church records. Both of the companies that provide access to them online, ArkivDigital and Genline, require downloading a viewer to access images. How should I note this in the citation, or should I at all. Should I just state that it is a digital image and put the website for the program?

On a seperate note, Genline has digitized the FHL microfilms while ArkivDigital is digitizing the original books. Should this be noted any where or assume that by going to company's website, this can be discovered?

Penned or Stamped? (Census pages)

I don’t know if this subject has been discussed before. I have a 1940 census. For the page (or sheet) number, there is number 3 written in and a letter A already pre-printed on the sheet.

 

Is the page number, when used in the citation, considered penned because the number 3 is written? What about the letter A? In my “version” of the citation, I used 3A but didn't indicate if it was penned or stamped?

 

Thank you,

Citing transcribed records - document or database

I abstracted various newspaper records, vital records, warnings out of town and overseers of the poor records into 20+ databases. I created abstract summaries and exported them into four primary databases, then output them into pdf files and copied them into four MSWord documents and added introductory information.

I have shared the files with various individuals and organizations. One of the organizations is adding the information to their web server databases and I am providing them with copies of the abstract summaries from the 20+ databases in tab delimited files.