Electoral Rolls

By Hendrickson on Tue, 09/22/2020 - 13:52

Forums

I'm trying to cite electoral rolls for Australia, which are on Ancestry. Some of them have a cover page so intend to cite the image first. I began to wonder if these were published or not. What I found from the National Library of Australia is that it appears that they were printed and available for public inspection to challenge eligibilty of other voters, but not with the intent to sell. (not sure if that meets the criteria for publication or not)

Looking at 9.3, I was curious why the examples in the book do not contain titles that are italicized or in enclosed in quotation marks?

In my case I copied the title from the cover-page and am not sure whether to italicize, put in quotation marks or leave as is. Appreciate your input.

Commonwealth of Australia, State of New South Wales, 1977 Joint Electoral roll for the Subdivision of Dee Why, Division of Mackellar, State Electoral Districk of Wakehurst, p. 43, col 2, entry for James Alexander Taylor; imaged from “Australia, Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980,” Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 22 September 2020), image 47; citing "Australian Electoral Commission".

Submitted byEEon Tue, 09/22/2020 - 19:39

Hendrickson, can you post an image of that title page from the book?   As a general answer to your paragraphs 2 and 3 about when to use quotation marks for unpublished material, see EE 2.22.

Submitted byEEon Wed, 09/23/2020 - 09:13

Thanks, Hendrickson, for the visual. EE would treat this as a publication (layer 1); imaged at website (layer 2). Publication does not require the sale of the product. Publication occurs when multiple copies are made for distribution.

Incidentally, the "title page" you show seems to be a division page within a larger publication. Can you thumb the images back to the start of that bound book?

Submitted byHendricksonon Wed, 09/23/2020 - 11:28

Thanks for pointing that out. From my initial view it was page 1 of 113. The viewer itself doesn't allow me to go back further but I can through the film strip. I am a little confused at how it is organized.

For context the image I am referring to  is 1977 Electoral Roll for the Division of MacKellar an the subdivision of Dee Why. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1207/images/40822_202317__0013-0082

You can see the path, Australia Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980,> New South Wales > 1977 > MacKellar > DeeWhy.

If I move backwards in the film strip I can find a target for the Division of MacArthur-MacKellar and the next page being the spine of the book.  https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1207/images/40822_202302__0001-00001?ssrc=&backlabel=Return

If you back to the catalog page Ancestry gives you the option of picking MacArthur, MacArthur-MacKellar or MacKellar. Dee Why falls under MacKellar.

There is no such target for the Division MacKellar.  However if I go to the end of the film strip for the division of MacKellar, there is a title page https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1207/images/40822_202302__0007-00447?ssrc=&backlabel=Return

And again, no target between the Division of MacKellar and the next in the Film Strip for the division of Bathhurst.

I'm left wondering if in 1977, they lumped the two divisions into the same book or if Ancestry is just organizing these out of order (which I think they are). I tried researching the divisions and I have not found a division called MacArthur-MacKellar.

Hope all this makes sense to you. My head hurts.

Submitted byHendricksonon Wed, 09/23/2020 - 14:06
For more clarity I should specify that the title page for the district MacKellar is after the Warragamba subdistrict so I am not sure I have a logical way of pointing someone there since Ancestry renumbers the images with each subdistrict. I'm starting to think it might be better to start the citation with Ancestry's database instead of starting with the image.

Submitted byEEon Wed, 09/23/2020 - 18:32

Hendrickson, it was fairly common—across time and place—to include a number of districts in one volume. That said, to state the obvious: one of the disadvantages of today's online access to image copies is that a set of images will be stripped out of context, leaving us uncertain as to exactly what we are using.

In your case, EE would extract the data for the "title page" that is visible and format it as a basic book in layer 1, then cite Ancestry, its database, and its path in layer 2. You might also note that the "book" appears from the image to be part of a larger book, but that it is not possible to identify that larger work from the database images.