How to use source information given by Ancestry?

Paula, your pain is shared by a lot of history researchers. We love Ancestry for all the records it provides, but the manner in which it identifies its records leaves most users perplexed—partly because of that redundancy you've noted and partly because of its illogical separation of data parts. On the positive side, this is good because it compels us to learn what we're dealing with. (That devil's imp inside of us does make us wish that research was just a matter of point, click, and copy! Both NARA and Ancestry do a good job of making sure that imp doesn't win.)

All this, of course, is why EE has an Ancestry QuickSheet to guide researchers through the six basic types of material found at Ancestry. Here, space does not allow us to go into all the points that the QuickSheet covers, so we'll focus on two issues: sorting out the rats' nest of details that Ancestry provides about this source; and reconsidering what is essential in a citation to military records at NARA.

Ancestry, as you've noted, arbitrarily divides its source information between "Source Citation" and "Source Information." What it calls a "citation" does not meet the standards of any citation guide nor the needs of researchers. Consequently, we have to understand what pieces of data are essential; then we have to cherry pick details from both sections to construct that citation.

The basic format for citing a database, as shown in both EE (2.33) and the Ancestry QuickSheet, is the same as citing, say, a chapter in a book—with one exception noted in square editorial brackets below:

• Author of chapter or database (if there is one),
• "Title of Chapter or Database,"
• [for websites, at this point we also say what type of material we're dealing with]
• Author of book or website
• Title of Website
• (Publication place/URL : Date),
• Specific item of interest;
• Source of the source.

Following this pattern, we see four tweaks to make in your citation:

(1) The title you show for the database is not actually the title of the database. What you are showing here is a title that Ancestry gives for its source. Using the source-of-the-source title means that Ancestry's card catalog does not return this set of records, when we enter that title.

(2) Your "Publication place" data is missing. If we filled in all three data fields above, Ancestry's name would appear in all three fields—a needless redundancy. Consequently, for websites whose title is the name of the author/creator, we can skip the author/creator field, but we cannot skip the URL field.

(3) Your specific item of interest appears as "Albert Clough." However, this Ancestry database has 3 different Albert Cloughs, in addition to Albert B., Albert C., Albert P., Albert S., and Albert W. This is a common situation in virtually all military collections. Consequently, researchers have to provide certain specifics about the person in order to identify the correct one. In the military and military bounty-land sections of EE (11.28, 11.32–11.40) you'll see certain pieces of information about the soldier (i.e., identifiers) that must always appear in our citation.  Also, because the "identifier" you entered at the third bullet above cites both a database and images, your specific data for Albert Clough will need to tell us which type of item you are citing—Ancestry's database entry or the actual image.

(4) The "source of the source data" that you provide is almost perfect. The basic principle that's not observed here is the need to put quotation marks around anything that you quote exactly. (Always, anytime, everywhere!) A smaller tweak that's needed is likely a result of the difficulty you had with putting things in HTML. Whatever citation Ancestry or any other source makes, if the title appears in italics we should render it that way also. (If we must work in ASCII, where the italics option is not available, then the convention is to put an underscore at the start and end of the words that should appear in italics.)

Finally, thanks for your patience while EE's overseer was toiling in other vineyards.

Paula, you're much closer. With regard to your specific questions:

• The "publication date" Ancestry gives for a database can be handled as you've shown. On the other hand, in most cases, it's not essential. At this website, it typically has no correlation to the date the record was created; and, in the case of databases in which corrections have been made, Ancestry does not go back into its source information to say "revised edition," with a new date. The more relevant date, with Internet databases is the date we accessed it. That concretely identifies the point of time at which the website gave the explicit data we collected.
• For draft registration records that don't show a unit, the info to add there would be the draft district in which the person registered. Your updated citation shows the state, but not the district or his location—both of which would be needed if your man had a more-common name.
• Possibly, your Ancestry display is showing differently than ours but, on our display, Ancestry's identification of its source does use italics. (Actually, Ancestry uses those italics improperly; but if we don't know the particular records Ancestry is citing and we're quoting their citation exactly to avoid guesswork, then we would replicate the italics.)
• For us to attempt to properly cite the original collection at NARA on the basis of what Ancestry provides would be a risk, yes (not to mention an exercise in futility in most cases). For relocation purposes, the best thing to do would be to cite that ARC Identifier Number—a unique ID that NARA is now adding to records it digitally processes, and the collection to which the ARC number belongs.

All things considered, EE would probably use the following:

"U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863–1865," database and images, Ancestry, 2011 (www.ancestry.com : accessed 10 October 2012), digital image, 3d Congressional District, Albert Clough, Ingham, Michigan; citing ARC Identifier 4213514, Consolidated Enrollment Lists, 1863–1865 (Civil War Union Draft Records); Records of the Provost Marshal General's Bureau (Civil War), Record Group 110; National Archives, Washington D.C.

Patti,

I've not replicated your exercise in Ancestry's database (my coterie of clones didn't show up today to do my other chores so I could play with records off my beaten path), but your efforts to better identify the original records rather than rely on Ancestry's description is a very commendable approach. Using that approach, your citation seems to cover all the essentials.

Dennis,

I assume that the "reference note" to which you refer is EE's own in Message 8, rather than one of those posted by our users. I'll repost the citation from Message 8, here, and then comment:

"U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863–1865," database and images, Ancestry, 2011 (www.ancestry.com : accessed 10 October 2012), digital image, 3d Congressional District, Albert Clough, Ingham, Michigan; citing ARC Identifier 4213514, Consolidated Enrollment Lists, 1863–1865 (Civil War Union Draft Records); Records of the Provost Marshal General's Bureau (Civil War), Record Group 110; National Archives, Washington D.C.

The phrase "Consolidated Enrollment Lists, 1863–1865 ..." is the name of a collection at the National Archives. Collection names at archives or other repositories are typically not placed in quotation marks. With regard to national and state archives, you'll note many examples of this in EE's chapters 9–11.

If a website such as this were to badly botch the identification of a record set that it purports to cites or if its identification is seriously inadequate, then EE would likely put that faulty citation in quotation marks to indicate this is exactly what the record provider says, although it has obvious problems.  If you have the QuickSheet Citing Ancestry.com Databases & Images, you'll see this done in several examples that involve several different circumstances.

FCJ:

The online world is still flexible on this point and many companies advertise themselves as simply www.____ .  The important point to note is this: Not all URLs begin with http—and not all use www.

As a rule, it's best to use the exact and full URL. With a site as well known as Ancestry whose images and databases are cited over and over and over again in just about every research project that is based on original records, there are good arguments for using the short form. On the other hand, some well-known web entities use different patterns for different webpages or different divisions of the company. Take Google, for instance:

• Google search: https://www.Google.com
• Google news:   news.google.com
• Google books:  books.google.com
• Google images: www.google.com/imghp

The bottom line is that there is no one cookie-cutter pattern to use in every case.