Redundant citing of NARA publications used by Ancestry

By Anonymous on Thu, 02/07/2013 - 18:23

Forums

For the full reference of census sources obtained from digital images in Ancestry or FamilySearch, I understand that we should "cite the source's source", by including "citing NARA publication XXXX". But in my narrative, after I have used the full reference at least once for each of the census years, what about the case where I say, citing the 1860 census again and again, but for different states or counties? Should I continue to [reduntly] reference the NARA publication? This is making my citations excruciatingly long.

Submitted byEEon Thu, 02/07/2013 - 20:43

Enlightened Bon:

EE will answer your question with another question or two. Consider this "food for thought."

If you are reading a compilation by someone else and you encountered a first reference to the census of a certain year, state, and county, would you expect the NARA microfilm to be identified? Or would you think: Oh, joy! Now I can read all the other citations in search of other references to that year—albeit different states and counties—to find out what NARA microfilm publication number this is?

Would you then think: Drats! A different state and county would be on a totally different roll of film, so I still would not know the roll number! Or would you, being disappointed but being a smart researcher, know you could zap on over to NARA's website and get the appropriate microfilm publication number and roll number for Whatever County in Whazzit State?

Admittedly, with U.S. federal censuses from 1790-1940, these days, we have a reasonably good excuse for not adding the NARA film publication number and roll number to every first citation to a census year/state/county—at least an excuse we might use for the population schedules. Those are ubiquitous today, offered as images by a number of providers—even free ones. Where the population schedules are concerned, virtually all the offerings are digitized from the same NARA microfilm which, as noted above, can be easily identified with a quick check at the NARA website. For this reason, many publishers don't bother to cite the NARA film for the U.S. federal population schedules. NARA citations to censuses would be used only for the less-common schedules or in cases of anomalies.

Considering all this, EE would say that what you do in your own research notes, for the population schedules, is up to your own conscience.