Questions on draft registration cards

By Anonymous on Sun, 08/16/2015 - 12:31

Forums

In an effort to come up with a citation for  a draft registration card for WWII found at Ancestry, I am looking at EE 11.33 (second and third editions).  I would like to begin with my questions about the second edition example and I would appreciate very much your comments to the following:

Christopher Ferraci (2nd edition)

A.  Should not the name of the database in the source list entry and the first reference note match the name of the Ancestry database:  "U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918"?  ("U.S.," is missing from the front of the database title in the example.)

B.  This particular draft registration card does not have the typical stamp so there is nothing on the card referring to a local draft board, let alone to a draft board 7.  It does give a place of Roch[ester], New York.  While the database gives that information, the text in EE 11.33 states that this is an example of a citation for the image, not for the database.

Given your many posts that we generally shouldn't assume much, if anything, can we nevertheless assume that this would be a draft board record?  Is it common knowledge that a draft registration card originally would not be anywhere other than in the records of a draft board?

Even if it is okay to include "draft board" in the reference note, how can we include "7", given its absence from the image?  At best, wouldn't it belong in the citation part of the reference note?

C.  The source information given by Ancestry includes (1) "Registration State:  New York; Registration County:  Monroe; Roll:  1818810, Draft Board: 7; and (2) "National Archives and Records Administration, M1509, 4,582 rolls.  The reference note includes:  "NARA microfilm publication M1509; no specific roll cited."

Does this mean that the State of New York has at least 1,818,810 rolls that the NARA copied into only 4,582 rolls?  And since Ancestry is using the NARA microfilm, then it's unnecessary to cite to the state rolls, being a secondar source?

I'm not sure about the use of the word "publication" in "publication M1509."  Is publication being used here as a generic term because we don't know what M1509 is, or is there a specific document M1509 that we know about and that document is actually known as a publication?

 

Submitted bynewonashon Sun, 08/16/2015 - 15:23

After posting I went online and answered my last question.  I discovered that there is indeed a NARA publication M1509.  It appears to narrow the range of possibilities for roll number of the roll containing the draft registration card for Mr. Ferraci, but cannot be used to discover the actual roll number.

Submitted byEEon Mon, 08/17/2015 - 17:56

Dennis, the names of databases at Ancestry do undergo changes across time, for a variety of reasons. Whatever title we used for EE's 2nd ed. in 2009 would reflect what we used at that time. (Actually the Christopher Ferracci example is in EE's 2nd ed. revised, 2012; the 2nd ed. used, at 11.33, a different example from FamilySearch.) Bringing database and website examples up-to-date after site changes is the major reason why these new editions are necessary. Keeping track of the individuals changes that make the updates necessary has proved to be an impossibility for EE.

With regard to Ancestry's mode of source identification (which isn't a citation):

  • There is certainly no way that 1,818,810 rolls exist for the state of New York. You raise a good issue there. What Ancestry's source description is not telling us is that "1818810" is the "cataloging" roll number assigned by the Family History Library, from which Ancestry did its digitizing. Given that Ancestry identifies the publication as NARA's M1509—which consists of 4,582 rolls—Ancestry should have given us the roll number from M1509. As it is, it mixes peas and apples. It does that often with material from NARA microfillm publications.
  • "Publication" isn't a generic term here. NARA did publish a set of film under the series number "M1509," which also carries an actual title that Ancestry doesn't give us. (In your subsequent message, you indicate that you did more exploration online and figured this out.)
  • A "secondary source ... "  Hmhh. Have you seen EE 1.12's discussion of the ambiguity of the old generic categories "primary source" vs. "secondary source"? And the Evidence Analysis Process Map at the flyleaf of EE, where sources are differtiated as original, derivative, and authored works, while the information within the source is differentiated as primary (firsthand), secondary (secondhand) or unknown?  The context in which you use the term "secondary source" makes the point why those generic terms muddle the issues. If NARA filmed a state-level record (which isn't what the State of NY reference means here, by the way), that film would not become a "secondary source" even in the context taught to attorneys, journalists, and history students. Under that the generic label that mish-mashes the characteristics of the source with the characteristics of the information, it would still be considered a "primary" source. Even a thirdhand derivative made by FamilySearch, from the NARA microfilm, or the New York draft records would not reduce the FS film to "secondary" status.

Submitted bynewonashon Mon, 08/17/2015 - 18:16

Thank you.  I am still unclear whether information that is not in an image and which I cannot independently verify and which only appears in the database can appear in the reference note for the image (rather than the database), and, if so, whether it only goes in the citing part of the reference note.

Dennis,

If your citation emphasizes the image itself, then

  • Layer 1 cites only what is visible or what you can identify by paging backward or forward in the record set, as you would do in using the original.
  • Layer 2 would cite the essentials for the provider's database and website.
  • Layer 3 would cite the source-of-the-source data that the provider gives you.

Your layer 1 would not cite identification details from Layer 3 that you cannot confirm through your use of the source.