Citing Names i.e. Birth names, AKA names

By Anonymous on Fri, 03/10/2017 - 03:17

Forums

This may appear to be a super dumb question, but I am going to ask it anyway. It may not even belong in the EE forums, so I apologise in advance if it is not relevant.

I am just wondering what others do for the given name and any other name varients of their ancestor. Do you give a source/citation for their name with every given instance of a record that you may have found?

The first source of an ancestor name might be a birth/baptism record (if it has been found). So in addition to the source/citation of the birth/baptism, do others also use the same citation for the "name" of their ancestor in their file?

Then let's say the next record is a census, same name as the birth/baptism record, do you also use the same source/citation used for the census, as a source/citation for the name of your ancestor?

Then let's say the next census has a varient spelling, so you add an AKA to your file. In addition to the source/citation for the census, do you also use that same source/citation for the AKA?

The reason I ask, is that as an e.g. I may have say 10 different events with sources like BMD certificates, immigration records, census records, newspaper articles with marriage, death, funeral notices, obit etc  and they don't have any AKA's. By using a source/citation for another 'event' as a source/citation for their name, does that actually validate anything? Or should those sources just be written up as research notes for name validation?

Thank you EE.

 

 

 

Submitted byEEon Sat, 03/11/2017 - 09:44

Robyn, this definitely is not a dumb question, much less "super dumb." It's one every researcher faces. It's also an issue we covered in some detail last year in our QuickTips blog.  See https://www.evidenceexplained.com/quicktips/how-do-i-cite-name. 

You might also be interested in another forum discussion that 3bells, pdryburn, and I had a couple of years before that. https://www.evidenceexplained.com/content/too-many-names-one-person.

Submitted byEEon Sun, 03/12/2017 - 09:15

Robyn, I'm puzzled as to why it doesn't work. I've tried it in several browsers, with a cleared cache. https://www.evidenceexplained.com/quicktips/how-do-i-cite-name

But, researchers always find a workaround, right?  Go to the top right of the screen and you will see a search box. Type in there the two key words from your query: cite name. On the list of hits, you'll see this QuickTips item: "How Do I Cite a Name?"

 

Submitted byRobyn_62on Mon, 03/13/2017 - 19:14

Hello Editor

I worked out it was the dot (.) at the end of the link https://www.evidenceexplained.com/quicktips/how-do-i-cite-name. that made the issue of not connecting.

 

Thanks again,

Robyn