Citation Issues

The "Wills and testaments" collection of the ScotlandsPeople site is a bit unusual. The viewable material is typically the content of a "probate-like" package. That package can contain many submissions; each with its own submission date. The search results do show the overall "confirmation" date, which is effectively the date when the legal process ended and one can use the year portion in a search. However; the confirmation date, or even just the year, is not typically visible anywhere in the package materials.

Hello,

I’m rather new at citing online images and would appreciate your help. I’m trying to correctly cite a marriage listed in a published vital records book found in an Ancestry database (named). Template 1 (p. 116) and Template 10 (p. 128) seem to be appropriate for the citation layers.   

Just when I thought I understood layers and semicolons, I don't.  I had thought for imaged documents in a database, whether I choose either approach:  

1. database name and waypoints; image identification/details 
or 
2. image identification/details; database name and waypoints

the two were separated into separate layers by a semicolon.

But now looking more closely at EE, case one uses a comma to string the information together.  

Why is that?  

Thanks
Jeff Hodge

Greetings:

While analyzing the citation on page 316 in Evidence Explained, 4th edition, I'm confused about the exclusion of the FSL digital film number, GDS number, and image number. Could you please clarify why these were left out? 

Thank you

Hello, EE,

I need to cite a newspaper imaged at Newspapers and believe I know how to do that except for one problem. When I access the image for the first page of each of the several issues I’m citing, the image itself shows the newspaper’s name to be the Davenport Democrat. However the web site’s “frame” at the upper left corner of the image calls it the Morning Democrat, [See, by way of example,  https://www.newspapers.com/image/301103983 .]

Dear EE,

Several of my ancestor's military records are in a manuscript collection.  Samuel Day was a volunteer.

My source entry is for the collection.  The records are not online; I paid to have photocopies made.  I included the website URL as a help to finding the collection.  Omitting the collection ID (see First Reference Note, below) from the Source List Entry comes from the Library's suggestion for preferred citation and possibly some QuickCheck models from EE 1st ed.

I am working through the pension file for John W. Culmer. Although this document is not explicitly identified as an affidavit, I have treated it as such. The document in question asks the pensioner to provide information about himself, his marriage, and children. It is signed, but I see no evidence of it being notarized.

I think I have it correct, but I welcome any tweaks.

I find it disconcerting that in their new cataloging scheme Family Search is disconnecting their content from the original microfilms. How can we write a proper citation without, in ES Mills' terminology, providing the "source of the source?" How do we know that a record is genuine unless we know where repositories such as Ancestry and Family Search got their images? (I know, I know: these websites are purposely setting themselves up to be publishers of record and obscuring their sources)

Here is a recent citation I created that I believe is properly complete:

Please forgive the long post, but I have several questions related to the historic letter citations covered in the fourth edition of EE.

Author's Location

Template 7 on page 123 says to handle the first reference note the following way. (I am omitting the sentence for the descriptor and using bold to call attention to my area of concern.)

Scotlands People has changed things again. The example for citing on-demand images won't work any more. The images in the image-viewer appear to now be ephemeral. They stay around in a cache for a while but then go away after some time. The citation that caught my attention is the one on page 326. It seems best to just use the cite database entry form and not attempt to use image paths.