How many layers?

By gdcooke on Thu, 12/08/2022 - 15:16

Forums

How many layers do I need to cite a transcribed/edited document described as (copied directly from the website):

We are fortunate that John Myers’ great-grandson, John H. Myers, a direct descendant of Jim Thornton Myers, wrote the family history in the summer of 1942, and send it to his relatives still living in Alabama. Please enjoy.

  The document that follows was:

  1. Compiled and written by John H. Myers, Floydada, Texas, June, 1942

  2. Submitted by Floyd Guthrie, and provided here with his permission

  3. Edited by Will Pearson, March 2000. (Ed. Note: This tremendous document, received from Floyd Guthrie was written almost 60 years ago. It was in all capital letters, which made it difficult to read. I have taken the liberty (being the self-appointed editor) of re-typing the document to a different format, corrected spelling errors where found, changed states mentioned to their full name, and tried to eliminate other obvious errors.)

To add a few wrinkles, the website itself is on the Wayback Machine, and the page that holds the transcription is buried in the site's hierarchy. If you want to look at it, here is the current URL, https://web.archive.org/web/20060827174951/http://www.users.uswest.net/~willmurray/Mullins/nancymullins.htm

My best guess is I need four layers: 1. The transcription, written by Myers/edited by Pearson; 2. The web page, authored by Pearson; 3. Wayback's path; 4. Wayback's capture date.

And, how would EE handle the source list entry? The QCM at 783 (3rd ed. rev) doesn't seem to quite cover it, as it's not a previously published article, and the original provider (uswest) no long exists. To my knowledge, the only place to find this website is on the Wayback Machine. Shouldn't that be part of the source list?

Thanks

Greg

 

Submitted byEEon Fri, 12/09/2022 - 08:36

Hello, Greg. The basic principle of citation is this: We cite what we use.

The webpage to which you link presents an authored article, "Nancy Mullins, 1793–1870," at the website Genealogy of Will & Sandi Pearson. The author of the article itself is not identified. The article states that part of the article is copied from someone else's work; but whatever it cites as its own source is not material we are using. We have no idea how accurate the article’s anonymous author was in copying the prior author.

Therefore, we cite what we use: the article at the website, following EE 3.31’s example for the WayBack Machine. Then we have a couple of choices:

  • We can add a third “citing …” layer to report whatever source our article says it has used.
  • We can add a separate sentence (or more) to explain what our article says about its source.

 

Submitted bygdcookeon Fri, 12/09/2022 - 11:57

I think I was confused by an earlier blog post:  Elizabeth Shown Mills, "Citing the Wayback Machine," blog post, QuickTips: The Blog @ Evidence Explained (https://www.evidenceexplained.com/quicktips/citing-wayback-machine : posted 5 July 2018). This was posted after EE was published, and presents a much different format for Wayback Machine citations. What is your current thinking regarding Wayback Machine citations? 

Submitted byEEon Fri, 12/09/2022 - 17:05

Greg, one cites an exact URL; one cites a path. Either type of citation works, as long as it works. (The same holds true at archives.gov, FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com, etc.) Perhaps I misunderstood your intent. I focused on your 1.2.3. issues and how that affected the citation, rather than focusing on the options for citing that specific website.

Submitted bygdcookeon Sat, 12/10/2022 - 16:17

I wondered if there was some confusion: The "1.2.3. issues" you focused on were actually a copy/paste from the Nancy Mullins page, and identify the author of Myers portion (presented in italics) as John Myers, edited by Will Pearson, who also authored that page as well as the entire site (even if there isn't an explicit by-line). He states his authorship on many other pages on the site.

Submitted byEEon Wed, 12/14/2022 - 17:09
gdcooke, as a suggestion: When we do a copy-paste from another source, putting quotation marks around the material we copy not only helps to separate avoid confusion, by clearly separating our words and thoughts from those of someone else, but also keeps us from stumbling intentionally into plagiarism.