Passenger Lists on Ancestry.com citing NARA -- Arrival by Aircraft

Welcome, Grandpa Chris:

For a “newbie,” you’re off to a great start. You’ve captured the essentials. We just need to tweak a few issues for clarity. Your draft citation is this:

“Florida, Passenger Lists, 1898-1963,” database online, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8842/images/42792_DC000455-01883 : accessed 4 October 2020), entries for Mary Shirley Cadavid, 26 February 1921; for Gustavo I. Cadavid, 20 July 1951; for Raul Cadavid, 29 December 1957 ; arrived 27 July 1960 on Flight RAS 200A to Miami, Florida; A3995 – Arrivals in Miami Florida, 1957 – 1963, Roll 224; citing NARA Micropublication A3621, Record Group 85.

1. Simple things:

• You can eliminate the sixth word, “online,” because the presence of a URL informs everyone that the record is online. What you need to say here is "database with images" so that readers will understand what kind of database you are using.
• In the website title Ancestry.com, let’s drop the .com. The website no longer uses it.
• The phrase "entries for ..." is misleading because you are not citing Ancestry's database entries (the abstracted data that Ancestry offers for each name). You are citing the images.

2. In your “item of interest” field, you present two different types of dates. One of those dates you identify by saying “arrived 17 July 1960.” But what about the other dates after each name? Since you are citing three cards, did each person arrive on a different date? If not, what do the other dates represent? That needs to be explained—not just for reader of your work but also for your own explanation, months or years down the road when your recollection of this source has grown cold.

EE would include “b.” or “born” before each date that represents a birthdate.

3. Within this same “specific item of interest field,” confusion is caused by punctuation. Bear with me as we wade into the weeds. As you know,  American English grammar calls for using semicolons when (a) we have items in a series and (b)  one or more of those items has internal commas. In that case, we use semi-colons to divide the major items. This is the standard you have followed in your “specific item” field where you write:

… images for Mary Shirley Cadavid, 26 February 1921; for Gustavo I. Cadavid, 20 July 1951; for Raul Cadavid, 29 December 1957; arrived 27 July 1960 on Flight RAS 200A to Miami, Florida;

Unless we alter the punctuation, then we hit a problem immediately after “Florida.” That’s the point at which you shift gears and move into the “source of the source" field.  You add another semicolon to separate that from what came before. But, if you’ve already use semicolons internally within the prior field (item of interest), then the data within your source-of-the-source field appears to be a continuation of details about the original record you’re identified in the “item of interest” field, rather than a new set of data provided by the website.

This problem can be eliminated easily by putting the birth dates in parentheses:

… images for Mary Shirley Cadavid (26 February 1921), for Gustavo I. Cadavid (20 July 1951), for and Raul Cadavid (29 December 1957), arrived Miami, Florida, 27 July 1960 on Flight RAS 200A;

4. Finally, we have serious confusion that seems to be created by Ancestry. In copying their source-of-the-source data, you have two conflicting pieces of information:

… ; A3995 – Arrivals in Miami, Florida, 957–1953, roll 224;  citing NARA Micropublication A3621, Record Group 85.

EE 11.8 would help you understand the problem here.  A3995 is a microfilm publication created by NARA. A3621 is another microfilm publication by NARA. Your cards are not in both of them; and A3995 is not part of A3621. Each is a separate, standalone series. Both are taken from Record Group 85: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). (Ancestry does not tell us what RG 85 represents but we can easily identify it for ourselves by Googling “Record Group 85 NARA.”)

This situation reminds us why we do not trust and “just copy” ready-made citations from whatever provider we are using. Humans create those citations and humans err.  

Above each image, Ancestry puts a path that briefly identifies what we are using.

In this case, Ancestry’s path tells us that we’re using a database called “Florida, Passenger Lists, 1898–1963,” which is part of a sub-collection Ancestry calls “A3995 – Miami, Florida, 1957-1963,” and we are using image 224 of that subcollection. Why Ancestry’s source data say that it is using NARA micropublication A3621 goes unexplained.

Ancestry appears to be providing wrong data at one place or the other. We cannot confidently say which, without examining each microfilm publication—and, in the case of A3621, Ancestry does not tell us which roll to consult.

One way to handle the conflict is this:

          1. “Florida, Passenger Lists, 1898-1963,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8842/images/42792_DC000455-01883 : accessed 4 October 2020), images for Mary Shirley Cadavid (26 February 1921), Gustavo I. Cadavid (20 July 1951), and Raul Cadavid (29 December 1957), arriving Miami, Florida, 27 July 1960, on Flight RAS 200A; citing (at image header) NARA micropublication “A3995–Arrivals in Miami Florida, 1957–1963, roll 224,” and (in its attached source note) “NARA micropublication A3621, Record Group 85, National Archives.”

5. Final issue. Your citation gives a URL to one image. It tells us that, at that image, we’ll find three cards. But that one image does not have two of those three cards. In this case, it is better to cite the URL for the collection and then the image number for each card. This alteration would produce the following:

          1. “Florida, Passenger Lists, 1898–1963,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/8842/ : accessed 4 October 2020) > image 1883 for Mary Shirley Cadavid (26 February 1921), image 1881 for Gustavo I. Cadavid (20 July 1951), and image 1882 for Raul Cadavid (29 December 1957), arriving Miami, Florida, 27 July 1960, on Flight RAS 200A; citing (at image header) NARA micropublication “A3995–Arrivals in Miami Florida, 1957–1963, roll 224,” and (in its attached source note) “NARA micropublication A3621, Record Group 85, National Archives.”