Systematic History Fund

By Chickadee22 on Sun, 06/23/2024 - 17:49

Forums

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.   

I’m citing the marriage of Seth Carpenter, 24 February 1785, in Sutton, Massachusetts.

The Ancestry database is “Massachusetts, U.S., Compiled Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1700-1850” at https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/61401/

Browse > Sutton.  The book’s title page is image 1 of 478. The marriage is on image 224.

 

Questions:

  1. The published transcription of Vital records of Sutton … is unauthored.  According to the title page, the publisher was Franklin P. Rice, treasurer of the “Systematic History Fund.”   Is it appropriate to include Systematic History Fund in the citation? 
  1. Do we need layer 3 (citing…)?  We can’t say the actual vital records are a source because the transcription of them (book) is the source?

 

Here is the First Reference Note so far, with emphasis on the record:

Vital records of Sutton, Massachusetts, To the end of the year 1849, abstraction (Worcester, Mass.: F. P. Rice, treasurer, Systematic History Fund, 1907), 224, Seth Carpenter marriage, 24 Feb. 1785; database with images, “Massachusetts, U.S., Compiled Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1700-1850,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/61401/ : accessed 22 June 2024) browse > Sutton > image 224 of 478. 

Thank you.

Submitted byEEon Mon, 06/24/2024 - 10:19

Hello, Chickadee22, welcome to EE.  As someone “rather new at citing online images” you’ve done spectacularly well. You clearly understand the basic principles.

First, to answer your specific questions:

1. The published transcription of Vital records of Sutton … is unauthored.  According to the title page, the publisher was Franklin P. Rice, treasurer of the “Systematic History Fund.”   Is it appropriate to include Systematic History Fund in the citation? 

Yes, EE would include the society as part of the publisher’s identity.

2. Do we need layer 3 (citing…)?  We can’t say the actual vital records are a source because the transcription of them (book) is the source?

Yes, EE would include this in the first reference note. Where a publication obtained its information always matters.

Beyond this, EE would tweak your citation in a few wee ways, for clarity. Your draft is this:

Vital records of Sutton, Massachusetts, To the end of the year 1849, abstraction (Worcester, Mass.: F. P. Rice, treasurer, Systematic History Fund, 1907), 224, Seth Carpenter marriage, 24 Feb. 1785; database with images, “Massachusetts, U.S., Compiled Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1700-1850,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/61401/ : accessed 22 June 2024) browse > Sutton > image 224 of 478. 

EE's tweaks, with the added source-of-our-source information, would create this:

Vital Records of Sutton, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849 (Worcester, Mass.: Franklin P. Rice, trustee, Systematic History Fund, 1907), 224, abstract, Seth Carpenter marriage, 24 Feb. 1785; imaged, “Massachusetts, U.S., Compiled Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1700–1850,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/61401/ : accessed 24 June 2024) > browse > Sutton > image 224 of 478. The “Publisher’s Note” states: “The list of [vital events] comprised in this volume includes all that were found in the Town Books covering the period. … Some additions have been made from other sources, and these are indicated in each instance.”

By way of explanation:

  • Capitalization. Book titles can be wildly inconsistent in the capitalization that they use. As writers, we’re expected to use standard practices. See EE4 2.57 for Capitalization: Publication Titles."
  • Publisher’s identity. Given that Franklin P. Rice is not a well-known publisher who can be easily identified from abbreviations, it would be best to spell out his name, as given exactly on the title page. Also, the title page of the book identifies him as “trustee” rather than “treasurer.”
  • Descriptors and bridge words.  (1) You use the term “abstraction” after the book title.  That descriptor field is meant for further details needed to identify the exact book, such things as volume numbers or edition numbers. You are wise to note that the Seth Carpenter marriage information is only an abstract, not the full and/or exact record, but that detail would be a descriptor for the marriage entry.  (2) You also use the descriptor “database with images” in Layer 2.  You’re right that we need to provide this information. However, we place descriptors after the title that it describes. What’s needed before the database title is a bridge word to say how the information that follows is connected to what you just identified in Layer 1.  The simple word “imaged” does that.
  •  Layer 3 (the “citing …” layer). In this case, an accurate report of where the publisher took his information requires a lengthy explanation and multiple sentences. In such cases, our citation is clearer if we simply add these as separate sentences.

Submitted byChickadee22on Mon, 06/24/2024 - 16:58

Thank you!  The explanations make perfect sense and they added wattage to my lightbulb.     

I held off on writing genealogical sketches until I had read the newest edition of Evidence Explained… I’ve read the first three chapters several times and cross-referenced information in the other chapters and this website.  The templates and examples are very helpful.  

One area I have trouble with is knowing what to cite in layer 3, the citing layer.  For example, do we cite the best description of the source of the record in layer 1, as in the above “Publisher’s Note?”  It’s a much better descriptor than the more generic website’s “source.”

Thank you, again!

Submitted byEEon Fri, 06/28/2024 - 14:42

Chickadee, whether we use a layer to report what an online publisher says about its source is a judgment call. In this case, Ancestry's "citation" of the book (i.e., Ancestry's source) does not offer anything more than what we get from the book itself. However, the book does offer critical information about the source of its information and we should record that in our citation. If we were using the book itself, rather than an Ancestry image, the source-of-the-source information would be added on to the end of the book's citation.