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How best to cite an original personally held document (baptism cert.) for which there is either a record entry or copy of the certificate in a church (Anglican) archive or record repository. Seems there is no way of knowing if the archived item is an entry in a record or a copy of the actual certificate.
Thanks!
CbdB, have you looked at EE 7
CbdB, have you considered EE 7.19?
I had not considered 7.19 (or
I had not considered 7.19 (or had forgotten). However, looking it over again I am still trying to puzzle this out.
There seems to be some leeway, therefore choices to be made: last name emphasis, institution emphasis .... And, personally, I have a strong preference to group sources within FTM 2014 for organizational purposes. This latter approach is further complicated by FTM's Source Templates, which Ancestry claims to follow EE formatting. In practise, it's a mess. So, like most other experienced FTM users (judging by forum posts) I tend to want to use the Generic Template which, although it is a bit free form, allows one some flexibility to "get it right," alneit withing the constraints imposed by its generic form.
Problem is, that puts the researcher right back to the original issue of formatting consistency.
Eliz., you will probably say ignore FTM in favour of a "higher order" of organization. But to me, if it's not organized within FTM then I have no practical means of structuring a massive and complex set of references. Llogical grouping in FTM is paramount: 1. overall by nation, then 2. consistency of type and / or institution. So, for example, after nation grouping follows census by year, followed by instution (ex., Anglican records such as baptism, marriage, etc. further grouped) . . . or should it be document type?
Anyway, I guess you get the picture. Interested in / appreciative of your comments or suggestions.
Chuck.
Hello Chuck,
Hello Chuck,
I thought I would share how I group sources with FTM. For census records I use: "Year U.S. census" for the source title then add the rest of the citation into the citation detail box. I do this for state census and other countries by replacing 'U.S. census' with the appropriate title. Grouping these this way the software actually formats the citation correctly except any italics for webpage titles.
Some of my other 'Source Groups' are:
Austria, Catholic Church Records
Books
Canada, Military Records
Canada, Land Records
Cemetery Photographs
England BMD's
England Parish Records
Family Artifacts
Historical Context
Kentucky, LaRue County Cemeteries
Kentucky, LaRue County Circuit Court
Legal Context
Minnesota BMD's (these are county or township level records)
Minnesota Department of Health, birth certificate, (I broke these out of the BMD's because I have 893 birth certificates cited. In other states or countries these would be in the BMD group.)
Minnesota Department of Health, death certificate, (I have 756 death certificates + death cards.)
Minnesota Catholic Church Records
Minnesota, Newspapers
Naturalization Records
U.K. Military Records
U.S. Military Records
When I use these groups I have to delete the 'source title' and add italics as appropriate. The only exception to this is the Minnesota Department of Health groups. When using the free form citation template they format properly.
Basically my idea was to group my 'source titles' similar to the Family History Library. In one of my databases I have 256 Source Groups with 75, 410 source references. If I have to look at 75,410 source groups I would never find anything!
For your example the certificate would go fall into a group like 'California, Church Records' If I have a lot from a specific church I may change or add a group 'California Anglican Church Records'
Ann Gilchrest
Thanks Ann.
Thanks Ann.
It helps to see how others are handling sourcing in FTM.
Do I understand you correctly? You use the Source Title field to group in FTM as you have outlined above, then correct individually according to standards in the Reference Note?
I think for alot of us the crux of the matter has to do with making improvements as we go along, then having to deal with sometimes onerous remdial efforts to bring the past up to current standards. After all, we've only had EE as a genealogical citation std. tool since 2007, right?
Your welcome Chuck,
Your welcome Chuck,
Yes, you are understanding me correctly. For almost all of my citations I use the Source Title as the name of the group. There are exceptions like census records and the Minnesota Department of Health certificates. In FTM if you go to the Sources page you can edit right on that page. I have mine set up with "Source Groups" on the left side. In the middle at the top is "source citations" below that is "Source." On the right side is "Source Citation Information" with five spaces for information. Repository, Citation detail, Citation text, Web address and Reference note. If you put your cursor in the Reference note box you will see two options for formatting italics and underline. This is where I edit the reference note. I will remove the "Source Title" as appropriate and italicize the appropriate titles. As a side note recently I started creating tinyurls, adding them in the Web address box for my on-line sources.
When I am creating citations I write them according to EE standards in a word document. I then chose or create the source group I want in FTM. Then copy and paste the citation in the citation detail box. I do use the citation text box for transcriptions of relevant text.
FTM doesn't have a short reference note. I have considered using the Source Notes as a place for this but haven't done so to date . I don't use the Repository box. Since I typically do not generate reports from FTM and instead write them in Scrivener or a Word document neither of these are really an issue.
Using this method works in FTM however, when you have a long citation all the information will not sync with an on-line tree on Ancestry the citation detail box is not big enough to hold all the information. For my tree on Ancestry I break these apart putting the second part in the "Other information" box on the Ancestry tree. I don’t sync my primary tree data with my tree on Ancestry. There are just too many things that can go wrong.
One of the advantages to using this method is the ability to use the "find and replace" feature in FTM. When Ancestry changed their name from Ancestry.com to Ancestry I was able to use the phrase Ancestry.com ( and replace it with Ancestry (. It only took a few minutes to correct thousands of citations.
I hope this helps,
Ann
Chuck,
Chuck,
When I first started to use this method I had to move all my citations into groups. For an example let's say I have 25 citations from Find a Grave and 30 from various other virtual cemeteries. I first created a Group/Source Title called Virtual Cemeteries. If you right click on a current source title you get several options one of them is 'Add Source' clicking on this brings up a window. The only thing I enter is the title in this case Virtual Cemeteries. Now I have a Source Group/Title called Virtual Cemeteries with no citations associated with it.
Then I went to all the Find a Grave citations and other virtual cemeteries and added the original title into the citation detail box before the citation details already present. I did this from the source page. Next I moved them all to the group title. This was done on the source page by right clicking on any source title and chose the option 'manage sources.' This option opens another window. Find the source you want to move highlight it and click replace chose the new source group and click ok. Your citation is now in the group you chose from here you just edit the reference note.
Ann
I forgot to mention one other
I forgot to mention one other aspect of my organization method. I don't add images or photographs to FTM. There are several reasons for this. The main reason is I don't want duplicates of my images cluttering up my hard drive. Secondly because of the amount of data in FTM I don't want to add more. With only text information one database is more than 54 megs.
I use the file system in Windows for digital images. My main folder is called Genealogy. Within this folder are folders for each Country I have researched in. Within each Country folder there are folders that match the Group titles I have chosen to use in FTM. For example there is a folder in the United States folder called US Military Records. In this folder are folders for each person for whom I have records for. In the Minnesota folder there are folders for Minnesota Land Records, Minnesota BMD's, Minnesota Court Records, Minnesota Church Records excreta. I have scanned entire films and specific item numbers from many of the parishes I am researching in Poland. In the Poland folder there are folders labeled with an FHL number followed by the parish name. In the FHL folder there are folders with item numbers if applicable.
This system makes it easy for me to find any document on my computer just by looking at my citation from FTM.
Ann
Hi Ann,
Hi Ann,
Was distracted for a few days installing / cutomizing / playing with Windows 10.
You have some good sounding ideas re getting FTM to conform to standards. For me, it might be too much WORK, though. I like the idea of using Manage Sources, as you suggest. I haven't used that apporach. Will have to give it a try. Thanks also for reminding me about Find & Replace. Two very useful and underutilized features, I think.
Sure hope they make sourcing improvements in FTM 2016.
Chuck.
Chuck, yes, there is leeway
Chuck, yes, there is leeway in citations. There has to be. For any generic term we might apply (“deed” or “census” or “baptismal record”) there are many different forms of that record—and endless quirks—whose distinctions make a difference when we evaluate the content or its evidentiary value.
As for your FTM problems, EE can sympathize, but we can’t help you there. When FTM’s developers decided to use the EE models and created those citations, they did ask me if I’d review the results. Because of the major role that Ancestry plays in the family-history research world, I agreed and spent considerable time doing so. Many of the points I queried were addressed. On many others points, the developers decided (and I paraphrase, here): ‘We don’t feel we should do that, because customers who have used our templates for all these years are accustomed to the different way that FTM has always done things.’
Considering the number of grumbles we now hear about the difficulty of getting FTM to conform to modern standards, it may be time for FTM users to revisit the issue with FTM developers.
Chuck,
Chuck,
With regard to your original question, I've had other thoughts as well. But, without seeing the actual document you received, I'd be stabbing in the dark. Would you like to post a copy of the document?
Here is the certificate in
Here is the certificate in question.
Thanks much for the comments re source templates in FTM. Its interesting to know Ancestry's rationale as to why standards were not fully implemented. Here's hoping (faint) for FTM 2016! I don't image the problem will be resolved but I do hope there will be some improvements. In any case, intend to submit a comment (or two) to Ancestry applications Suggestion Box .
Thanks also for the opportunity to dialogue on these issues . . . the discussion process helps work towards a better personal understanding.
Much appreciated!
Chuck.
Chuck, it does help to see
Chuck, it does help to see the actual record that you are trying to cite. What you've uploaded is a plain-vanilla church-issued certificate of baptism. The church-records chapter of EE offers several options; but two are particularly appropriate, depending upon how you acquired this document:
It is unfortunate that the preparer of the certificate did not cite book and page for the original. That's a point you'll likely want to add to your citation.
OK. I can at least see the
OK. I can at least see the problems more clearly. There is the issue of emphasis, citing family name vs. institution where registered, along with geographical / location info, and the matter of what takes priority.
Then there is the apparent disassociation between certificate, with the need to properly document the item in hand (EE 7.19), and the actual institutional record of the event (EE 7.13). So, looking at that aspect, the citation difficulty centeres around whether to focus on the certificate as an item in one's personal collection or an institutional record which might better allow confirmation / discovery for other / future researchers.
Then there is the fact that the certificate doesn't reference any intitutional filing mechanisms. As suggested, the record filing info should be added to the citation, but that could be a difficulty esp. when considering numerous such certificates.