Online Index - State Marriage Index (derivative source)

Docjavadude:

May we ask why you are using Source List Format (i.e., Bibliography Format) to construct these citations? The principal citation form is the quite-different Reference Note Format. Whether we are doing classic historical research or family research, and whether we are recording our findings in a relational database or writing an essay or book, the reference note format is the one we use for every citation that supports an assertion or a specific piece of information.

Docjavadude:

Each software has its own quirks and EE does not claim to be an expert in any of them. However, your present problem seems fixable with non-technical advice.

1. EE totally agrees with you about "how FTM uses 'source' language." FTM is a modern incarnation of software developed in the late 1970s by brilliant engineers who were not also trained in humanities-style research. As a consequence, they created their own terms and practices that have persisted in that software across the decades. With each new version of FTM, the developers have decided that correcting the software's language would 'confuse' and 'frustrate' their longstanding users and that it would be far less problematic if new adoptees of the program simply adapted. Some other software does still follow the FTM language. Most does not.

2. Most of the relational databases for genealogy first ask you to create a source list entry which should be much the same as what you've done in your academic career.* Once you've created that source list entry, it essentially serves no function unless you periodically want to print out a bibliography. As in academia, virtually all the citations you create after that will be in reference note style. To help you over your present source-list hump, let me ask: Are you having this same trouble with all your source list entries or just those that involve databases?

*I have flagged this point and asked the last question for the same reason: the creation of  source list entries will be much the same so long as you're using basic materials such as books, journal articles, dissertations, and manuscripts from university archives. However, source list entries can be much more complicated when you're working with esoteric original documents or with online materials for which there is much more information that needs to be captured.

3. Yes, there are differences between EE9.6 and EE10.21.  The online example at 9.6 is an example for digital images of actual records. The online example at 10.21 is for a database entry, which is a totally different critter from the original document. (A database entry of this type, of course, is created by some clerk who extracts data from the original. What we get  from the database entry is not the same quality—and often not the same information—that we would get from the original. The overview of principles for citing online materials at EE 2.33–34 might also be helpful, if you have not yet digested that chapter.)

4. The Texas site to which you've pointed offers only databases. In a cursory scan of its offerings, I see no actual record images. So, my next and last question tonight: Is there a reason why the "Online Database" example at 10.21 will not work for you?

Docjavadude,

Variances exist from one example to another because individual examples also are used to demonstrate  the handling of (a) varying situations; and (b) quirks that are frequently found for different types of source.

The variances can be best understood if we think in terms the essential pieces of information for a website, as given at 2.31, which I mentioned last night. As pointed out there, they are the same pieces of information needed for a basic book citation:

1. author/creator/owner of the website's content (if identifiable)
2. title of the website
3. type of item (as with a book's edition data)
4. publication data
   • place
   • date (posted, updated, copyright, or accessed)
5. specific item (page, section, paragraph, etc.)
6. source of our source, or any additional comments needed to understand the source

2.31 continues that correlation between a web citation and a book citation by extending it to books that have chapters or essays by different authors, as well as an overall editor. When that occurs, then all the above is preceded by two other data fields:

      A. author/creator/etc. of database, essay, chapter, etc.

      B. title of database, essay, chapter, etc., (to which we might add an identifier such as chapter number, nature of contribution, etc.)

When citing a basic book, we almost always use fields 1–5; but sometimes we don't use one or two of them. There may be no identifiable author, or we may be citing the whole book and not any specific item. Most of the time, we don't use fields A and B--although those fields need to exist in our framework for use whenever we encounter a book that has individual chapter authors as well as an editor.

The examples whose variances you question all fall within this framework. In Chapter 9 (the chapter for local and state registrations of various types, the two examples might be broken down this way:

The ANCESTRY example needs to include fields B, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6—i.e.,

• a database title (whose title doesn't  specifically identify it as a "database," so we add that identifier)
• a website title
• publication place and date of access
• specific item that we have used.

We don't have an author to identify for the database—and we don't need to cite the creator/owner of the website because its an eponymous site. Therefore, those fields go unused.

The USGenWebARCHIVES example needs to include fields A, B, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Again, the site's name is eponymous, so we don't use field 1.

In Chapter 10 (the chapter for local and state property & probate records), 10.21 deals with a simpler situation in which the state created the record, the state created the database, and the state created the source. Our citation follows the same template but fewer fields are needed. Here, we use Fields A, B, 2, 4, 5, and 6.

As for "who on earth will ever care" that you've been careful to construct informative and analytical citations, believe me, many people will thank you. Your family is not just yours and it doesn't belong to just those who carry your surname. Infinite numbers of people you'll never know will be using one or another segment of your work—not just genealogists whose family limbs entwine some of your own but, increasingly, academics who need quick and accurate biographical information on ordinary people in order to properly interpret their own research.