Discerning the title of a Church register

I am going back through my previous collection of citations and trying to make them more in the EE style.  I think I am getting the hang of layered citations and the velcro principle. 

My current struggle is a database with images collection in FamilySearch.  The ending waypoints take you to baptism records.  In the resulting images there can be several distinct books.  The spine of the books have been filmed followed by the first leaves of the book. In some of the books it appears that amongst the first leaves, one page appears to be more of a title page.  In other books, it appears to be more of a note about the book.

As an example, the beginning of book 4 begins here with an image of the outside covers (which are book covered) and the spine.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9396-XKDL-J 

The following imaging is the inside cover of the book with beautiful calligraphy and drawings.

My citation for one entry is as below.

Los Cinco Señores (Santander Jimenez, Tamaulipas, Mexico), “[Book] 4, I 1819 al X– 1830.–“, “Libro en que se asientan las partidas de Baptîsmos y se hacen en esta Parroquia de la Villa desde 1o Enero de 1819”, p26, [acta] 71, “Maria Luisa" Gonzalez, 15 Dec 1820; accessed as "México, Tamaulipas, registros parroquiales, 1703-1964," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9396-XKDT-5 : accessed 4 Jan 2022), Santander Jiménez > Los Cinco Señores > Bautismos 1819-1846 > image 31 of 497; paróquias Católicas, Tamaulipas (Catholic Church parishes, Tamaulipas).

Looking at EE 7.18, I was following the example reference for St. Libory.  I followed the path to that collection and noted that the title used in the citation was on the outside cover.

What I struggle with is whether to include what is on the spine in quotes or not?  Also, should I include what is on the inside cover as a title also in quotes? Should I include the words Church or Parish after Los Cinco Señores in Spanish or English? Is putting the word "Book" in square brackets appropriate since that doesn't appear on the spine?  I have determined that the Roman numerals in front of the years refer to the month of the year referenced. 

Books 2 thru 4 are similar having the same spine labeling and decorative inside cover.  But, book 5 and 6 are different.  The same spine label but the inside cover appears to be more of a note about what's in the book rather than a title. 

Book 5. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9396-XK6R-3

Book 6. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9396-XK6H-T

I appreciate any feedback before I dive into a several 100 similar records all requiring new citations.

Thank you.

Submitted byEEon Sat, 01/08/2022 - 11:13

Agonzaleswithans, you’ve done well with reasoning through this situation. I’ll repeat here your bottom-line question, along with Layer 1 of your suggested citation where the problem focuses:

> What I struggle with is whether to include what is on the spine in quotes or not?  Also, should I include what is on the inside cover as a title also in quotes? Should I include the words Church or Parish after Los Cinco Señores in Spanish or English? Is putting the word "Book" in square brackets appropriate since that doesn't appear on the spine?  I have determined that the Roman numerals in front of the years refer to the month of the year referenced.

      1. Los Cinco Señores (Santander Jimenez, Tamaulipas, Mexico), “[Book] 4, I 1819 al X– 1830.–“, “Libro en que se asientan las partidas de Baptîsmos y se hacen en esta Parroquia de la Villa desde 1o Enero de 1819”, p26, [acta] 71, “Maria Luisa" Gonzalez, 15 Dec 1820 …

The title, as you render it (highlighted in red) would likely puzzle your reader for two reasons:

  1. It carries two different sets of words with quotation marks around them. A reader’s natural response would  be Which one is the title? What does the second quoted item represent?
  2. Each of the two carries characters whose purpose or meaning is unclear:
  • [Book] 4, I 1819 al X– 1830.–
  • Libro en que se asientan las partidas de Baptîsmos y se hacen en esta Parroquia de la Villa desde 1o Enero de 1819”

The issue with quoting the spine, which you have exactly transcribed, is that what appears clear in an original context might not be clear when we transcribe it into a different context.  On the original we see

I.–1819

X.–1830

In this format, we can see that the I and the X represent roman numerals and that the whole should represent a beginning date and an ending date. However,

  • The font we’re using here (and you may be using in your software) presents the roman numeral 1 as a straight vertical line that is exactly the same as the “l” in the word “al.”
  • That character also looks exactly the same as the straight vertical bar that we can type from our keyboard, for use as a divider.
  • Even after the reader of your citation figures out that I and X represent roman numerals, the purpose of the roman numerals is unclear. Two contexts are common with records of this type. The roman numerals might represent sections or they might represent months for the cited years.

You say you have determined that the roman numerals repreesnt the month of the year. I'm not seeing that. Examining the book, I see that it does begin with the first month of 1819 but it does not end in the 10th month of 1830. It ends with May 1831. It seems, we still do not have an explanation for what the roman numerals I and X represent. Clicking through the images, I do not see that the book is divided into ten discernable parts or sections that might need to be cited. That said, the fact that the book carries the no. 4 on its spine and that the fact that it is dated from 1819 to 1830 [actually 1831] is important to the citation

Also at issue is the phrase "1o de Enero" in the title that you copy from the title page. As written, your readers may read and copy that as "10" January.  The original title page superscripts the second character: 1o de Enero. We should also. There are also several other differences between the title page and the title that appears in quotation marks.

The clearest way to present this muddle of data would seem to be (a) cite the spine generically and then (b) quote the exact title from the first page:

    1. Los Cinco Señores (Santander Jimenez, Tamaulipas, Mexico), Book 4,  1819 –1830 [1831], “Libro en qe se asientan las Partidas de Bautismos de esta Parroqa de la Villa de los Cinco Señores del Nuevo Santander, desde  1o de Enero de 1819,” folio 26, [acta] 71, Maria Luisa Gonzalez, 15 Dec 1820;

You'll note that I changed your "p26" to "folio 26."  We use "page" when every side of every leaf is numbered. In this case, only the right-hand pages are numbered; the backsides are left blank.  (EE 7.6)

I have also removed the quotation marks around the name "Maria Luisa." Their intent is unclear. The marginal ID for the entry calls her "Maria Luisa, Espagnola" ("Maria Luisa, a Spanish female") but the text identifies her as Maria Luisa daughter of Lazaro Gonzales.  If you were citing the marginal entry, then it would be appropriate to put quotes around all three words. But if you do not introduce that quirk, then just citing her as Maria Luisa Gonzalez would be appropriate.

 

By separating the book number, dates, and quoted title with commas, this can be read as if these were separate elements (rather than different/concurrent identifiers for the same title element), introducing a bit of confusion.

The quoted title is the title of book 4. If vol. 4 of a published series of books had a distinguishing subtitle, wouldn't it be separated from the (non-italicized) volume number by a colon, and italicized as part of the published title? Does the same principle apply here?

How about:

[...] Book 4 (1819–1830 [1831]): "Libro en qe se asientan las Partidas de Bautismos de esta Parroqa de la Villa de los Cinco Señores del Nuevo Santander, desde  1o de Enero de 1819,” [...]

or even:

[...] Book 4 (1819–1830 [1831], "Libro en qe se asientan las Partidas de Bautismos de esta Parroqa de la Villa de los Cinco Señores del Nuevo Santander, desde  1o de Enero de 1819”), [...]

[Sorry about the lack of superscript formatting! Imagine it's there ;).]

Either of these methods would make it clear that both the dates and the quoted title apply to "Book 4" as opposed to being subsections of the book.

The citation also doesn't answer the question: Book 4 of what? Based on the title of books 4, 5, and 6 of this series, it is clear that these are baptismal registers. Shouldn't this be indicated prior to the identification as "Book 4"? As these books all seem to focus on baptisms, there should be separate series of books documenting other sacraments. So:

Los Cinco Señores (Santander Jimenez, Tamaulipas, Mexico), baptismal register, book 4 [...]

or (my preference, since the word "Book" is descriptive not part of the official title), simply:

Los Cinco Señores (Santander Jimenez, Tamaulipas, Mexico), baptismal register 4 [...]

(Obviously, as you have said many times, citation is an art not a science, but to me these small changes make the citation more clear and informative.)

Michael

Submitted byagonzaleswithanson Sun, 01/09/2022 - 02:32

Thank you EE and Michael for your thoughtful input.  While I waited for my post to show up on the website, I actually did play around with the font because I too felt the Roman numbers were not clear with the font I was using.  I will be honest, I had not yet checked this book front and back for the inclusive month/year to verify the spine was correct, so thank you for picking it up.  While discussing fonts, my version of the citation does have the appropriate super scripting in place, but that didn't paste properly when I copied my citation from the document I crafted it in.  I didn't even notice it didn't translate in the post.

Regarding Michael's input, I too wondered about noting which sacrament the book contains, but book 2 of this series confuses that issue by including burials on the latter pages.

I do appreciate the feedback and feel more confident modifying my citations for each book. 

 

Submitted byEEon Sun, 01/09/2022 - 09:12

agonzales, you're approaching the issue wisely. Every historical resource has its quirks. What works for one, even within the same "series," will present a problem with another. 

As an aside, the two of you would not believe how many times those EE chapters were re-written, for this very reason, before the first edition saw the light of day. Even though it groups different types of sources into different chapters, after patterns were devised that would work for all examples in the first source-based chapter (Chapter 3), the plunge into Chapter 4 revealed that some of the patterns that worked in Chapter 3 did not hold up for Chapter 4—thus a rethinking of everything so that all would work for 4 as well as 3.  Then the same issues happened with Chapter 5, &c &c &c, all the way through Chapter 14!

Re the identification of which sacrament the book contains, the title to Book 4, of course, clearly states "Bautismos." For those who don't read Spanish, translating the titles can clear up issues such as this.