FHL Microfilm titles

Hello, MMS:

The purpose of italics is not to distinguish a title from the author’s name. That distinction is made by the wording itself. The purpose of italics is to tell us whether a source is published and, if so, whether it is a standalone item (i.e., a book, journal, map) that would be found in libraries elsewhere or catalogs of published works such as the Library of Congress online catalog or Worldcat.org.   (See 2.22 “Citing Titles, Basic Rules.”)

The reason this instruction appears under “Basic Rules” is that it really, really is a foundational principle of source identification, across almost all fields of study.  Yes, people and institutions always have room for improvement. But not many people would attempt to overthrow a practice used as a communication mechanism by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.  If you or I attempted to do so, we would be one person against the world and the world would consider our work misleading or uninformed.

Also in the “Basics” category, you state: “Titles are usually placed in italics or parentheses, depending on original source/usage.”  We need to clarify that. Going back to EE 2.22, we see this:

In short, we use

• Italics for titles of books, film, maps, journals, and other standalone publications
• “Quotation marks” for a named part of a book, etc.
• “Quotation marks” for titles of files, unpublished, if we copy them exactly
• “Quotation marks” for titles of unpublished manuscripts that actually have a title—one that we copy exactly
• No quotation marks and no italics for untitled registers, manuscripts, etc.

Parentheses are placed around publication data rather than titles.

You then state: “Most of the examples I have seen in EE maintain FHL microfilm titles in standard font (exceptions being titles of church records books, probably because they are published book titles …”

Several misunderstandings exist here:

• EE never puts FHL microfilm titles in italics. Going back to EE 2.22: italics are used for published works. Meanwhile GSU and FHL, the library in which GSU deposited its film, has always taken the stance that its microfilm is unpublished (EE 2.24–2.25).
• FHL also offers copies of microfilm published by other entities—just as it offers copies of books published by other entities. The titles of published books, film, etc., are always italicized (EE 2.22). In those cases, the publisher we cite is not FHL. FHL is only a library that offers books and film others have created.  We cite the actual publisher.  (EE 2.29–2.30)
• When EE cites a “church records book” and puts the title in italics, it is a published book for which publication data is given and the editor/translator/transcriber/abstractor/whatever is identified. The specific details in these cases tell our readers that the book is not the original church register—rather, it is a derivative of some sort that has been created by someone other than the original scribes.
• When EE cites an original church-records book that has been filmed by GSU and placed at FHL, EE will cite the original title in quotation marks, not italics. There will be no publication data. That signifies that the cited source is the original, unpublished manuscript whose title we have copied exactly. (I.e., quote marks are used around it because we are actually quoting something.) We then add a second layer to identify the number  of the FHL microfilm on which we viewed the filmed original. (Specific example in church records section, EE 7.13)

The major misunderstanding we need to clarify is this:  FHL microfilm has no title.  (EE2.27, para. 2)  One roll of film at FHL may contain many different items, even unrelated things on the same roll, each of which is individually titled in its native setting and described in usually different words by FHL cataloging. Often a roll contains several registers or record books that are part of a series.  The title we cite is the title that appear on the specific item that we are using.

That leads us now to a problem with the source you are using.  Your citation begins:

Wilson County (Tennessee), Wills and Inventories, 1802-1965, (1843-1848), p. 24, will of Isham Pucket …

The image to which you point is a poor-quality image. Meanwhile, I live just a few miles from the Wilson County, Tennessee, courthouse. If this document were critical to my research, I’d drive over and pull the record book to get a clearly legible copy. If I did not live close, I’d likely contact the courthouse and ask for a copy of that will. In either case, if we sought the record book using the title as you give it, we'd get nowhere because the Wilson County courthouse does not have any such record book.

Typically, to identify the unpublished record book we are using, we would flip back to the imaged cover of that register. In this case, we have a register imaged by a film crew that did not image the title of the book. We do not know what the actual title is. We have no title we can cite.

When I analyze the wording of your citation, what I see is this:

• Your URL (an ARK) leads to a FamilySearch database. You say that the database is “citing FHL microfilm 4770360.”  However, the link to which you point us cites no FHL microfilm.  It does not carry an FHL microfilm or digital film ID in the top left corner above the image, where the film number is conventionally found; and it does not carry an FHL microfilm or digital film ID in the citation that FamilySearch suggests in the fly-open at the bottom of the screen.
• If  I go to the FHL catalog, query for Wilson County and open the embedded links, I eventually drill down to a catalog entry worded by FHL as “Wills and inventories 1839-1850.” That catalog entry gives us two options. We may use either microfilm 430844 or digital film 4770360.  (The number you are citing is the digital film number, rather than the microfilm number.)
• If we click the link for the film number that you give in your citation’s last layer we get 661 images. However, the URL you cite points us to a collection that has only  242 images.
• In short, your citation mixes two different imaged collections that are not identical:
  • Your citation tells us that the 1838 will is on p. 24 of the original book dated “1802-1965, (1843-1848)”  and that it appears on image 14 of the FamilySearch collection.
  • Using the film number to get to the imaged collection, the register is titled “1839-1842, Wills and Inventories), and p. 24 is on image 21.

As constructed, your citation seems to suggest this:

• You used FamilySearch’s image collection “Tennessee Probate Court Books, 1795–1927.” You wanted to begin your reference note by citing the original record book, but that original has no filmed title in that image collection.
• In search of a title, you went to FHL’s catalog and sought something that seemed to match—a collection for Wilson County called “Wills and inventories, 1802–1965.” Then, because that title was obviously much too broad a time span for the one volume in which you are working, you added in parentheses the dates that are filmed on image 1 at the URL that you cite.

You definitely get bonus points for studying FHL’s catalog descriptions. That extra effort can help us understand what we are using. But catalog descriptions are not the same as the actual “titles” of the imaged material. (That's what EE 2.27, para. 2 cautions against.)

If, for this set of records, we begin by citing the record book, and then cite the database, we'd create a citation that begins like this:

1. Untitled record book, p. 24, will of Isham Puckett, 26 October 1838 ….

That would not a helpful citation or a logical one.

Because your document is embedded in a named database at FamilySearch,  the logical citation would begin with  the identity of the database, then drill down to the untitled book and page. (That is the suggestion also made by FamilySearch at the ARK you cite.)  In this case, your reference note would not end by saying that FHL is “citing  FHL microfilm 4770360” because FHL is not citing that in the database that you are using. (And because the microfilm number is actually not 4770360.)

The simple way to cite this, using just one layer, is this:

“Tennessee Probate Court Books, 1795–1927,” images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:2:77T2-DM43?cc=1909088&wc=M6QW-GMQ%3A179891901%2C180232801 :  15 March 2021), Wilson > Inventories, Wills, 1843–1848 > image 2 of 242, untitled probate book labeled "1843–1848" by filmer, p. 24, will of Isham Puckett, drawn 26 October 1838, probated April 1843 court.

That also shortens the citation. You will notice that the portion which cites the database is the same citation that FamilySearch suggests for that image (a citation FamilySearch based on its interpretation of Evidence Style). We cite the "Database," the Standalone Publication in Which the Database Appears (the place of publication : date), the Path > Waypoints > image number.  At the end of that citation to the database ... image, you add on the identity of the original book, page, and specific item.

Incidentally, I added the date of probate to the detail about the will. Otherwise, users of the citation would wonder why we are citing an 1843–48 probate book for an 1838 will and then question whether one or the other date was a typo on our part.

MMS, my apologies for not seeing your follow-up question.  You've handled the "alternate approach" very well.