Layered citation for Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records on American Ancestors

Sue, I should ask three questions, first, since you say you are using the templates from RootsMagic.

1. Are those 3 citations the formats that RootsMagic produces?

2. If so, are there specific elements you are questioning?

3. If so, have you used EE to determine whether there are discrepancies between EE and the RM templates?

Sue, thanks for explaining your reasoning. From your comments, I’m still not clear as to whether you are working solely from your software templates or whether you have EE itself, where basic principles and options are discussed.

If you have EE, you will find there many examples of citations to databases in which the lead element is the name of the database. The very first QuickCheck model in EE (p. 94, Archived Documents: Digitized) is one such. In fact, almost every chapter of EE has a QuickCheck model of that type. However, different software companies pick-and-choose their own selection of EE examples.

As researchers, working with online materials, we do need optional approaches. Sometimes, it works best for our citation to feature the original record book—typically when we have many citations to a specific book. Sometimes, it works best for our citation to feature the database itself, typically when it offers many different record books. That is why we have the concept of layered citations, so we can mix and match as needed. EE itself explains the options and offers many examples. This website’s QuickLesson 19 “Layered Citations Work Like Layered Clothing,” also explains those principles in detail.

In your examples, the fact that you chose to lead with a database title is no problem. However, there are basic issues that need discussing. (Again, I  have no way of knowing whether the issues exist in your software or in your adaptation.)

REFERENCE NOTE, LAYER 1.  Your citation gives us this:

"Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920," database with images, New England Historic Genealogical Society, American Ancestors (https://www.americanancestors.org/ : downloaded 14 November 2019), James Bradley, baptized 8 May 1892; ...

What are you using?  Your second field, the one that explains the database title, tells us that it’s a database with images. However, in the field for specific item “James Bradley, baptized 8 May 1892” there's nothing to clue us in as to whether you are citing the database or the image. (EE 1.23, 2.11–2.12 would help on this point.) That field should tell us (and you, at a later date after your recollection of the sources has gone cold) which you are you using—as, for example:

• ... database entry for James Bradley, baptized 8 May 1892 ...
• ... imaged page 654, James Bradley, baptized 8 May 1892 ...

REFERENCE NOTE, LAYER 2. Your citation gives us this:

; citing St. Francis de Sales (Charlestown) Baptisms, 1880-1893, page 654 of 715 [Archive, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston].

Are you citing page numbers or image numbers or intermingling the two?

Our QuickTips blog post, “Source Citations & the Velcro Principle” might help you here. Specifically, to your example:

• When we cite pages in a book, we don’t say “page 654 of however-many.”  We simply say “page 654.” 
• When we cite images in a database, we may choose to say how many images there are in that database. This practice has come to be because (a) because there are often many similarly-titled databases, of differing lengths; and (b) providers of databases frequently drop portions of the database or enlarge the database, thereby changing the image number. Saying “image ___ of ___” can be a useful datapoint that alerts us when something has changed.

The link you gave is behind a paywall, so I cannot check specifics on this point. The isolated image you supplied does reveal that it is page 654, but it does not tell us what image number or how many images there are in that database. Almost always with imaged books online, the image number and the page number do not correspond.

Should there be editorial brackets around the identity of the repository?

As EE.2.58 (Fundamentals of Citation) notes, square editorial brackets are used to signify that we are adding something of our own knowledge that is not to be found in the work we are citing.  

When I go to the website, query for the database, and search it for a name and date, I find a citation for that set of records. There, the database is clearly citing “Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston” and “St. Francis De Sales (Charlestown) Baptisms 1880–1892.” This is not a case in which we are adding, from our own knowledge, an identifier that the provider fails to give us.

SHORT REFERENCE NOTE. You citation gives us this:

"Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920," database with images,  New England Historic Genealogical Society, James Bradley, baptized 8 May 1892.

How is the New England Historic Genealogical Society connected to James Bradley?

We’re back to that Velcro Principle here. The name of the creator should be attached to the name of the work that it created, not to the specific item of interest.

The problem here stems from the fact that in Layer 1 you chose to identify the creator of the database and website after the name of the database, instead of before it. Now that you’re doing a shortened citation, you realize that the name of the creator needs to be there somewhere. Putting the creator’s name after the name of the published database and after the description of the database leaves the creator’s name coupled with the name of the child being baptized. 

I don’t know whether this construction is the product created by your software or by your adaptation, but if you’ll scan EE’s many examples of citing database with images, you’ll see that the short form consists of

                Creator name (optional), “Database Title, Website Title, specific item.  

In the short note, we do not have to say what type of database we’re using. That info is given in the full citation. But if we cite the name of the creator, we cite it before the item that entity created, not after it where it will be confused with part of the information taken from the source.

 

WEBSITE’S PROFFERED CITATION. As you note, the website tries to make it easy for us by offering a citation:

Massachusetts: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Records, 1789-1920 Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2019 (From records supplied by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston)

https://www.americanancestors.org/DB2726/rd/56954/654/1426334465

If you choose to use this citation format, you should be aware of three issues:

• The suggested format is a Source List Entry, not the Reference Note format that we create for each and every piece of information taken from that source. If we use this format (with a period between each field) for our Reference Note, where we often have multiple sources cited in the same note, we’ll create utter confusion as to where details from one source stops and details for the next source begins. In Reference Notes, each source is cited in a single sentence, with a period only at the end.
• The citation puts the URL in a paragraph by itself, as though it is a separate source from the paragraph above it. Again, if we do this in a reference note, we imply they are two different sources. The URL should be part of the same sentence that provides the other identifying detail for that source. In EE format, the URL is the place of publication and it is always handled exactly as the place of publication is handled for any published work.

More seriously,

• The citation uses italics for both the name of the database and the name of the website. A regular user of this website would know the difference. However, odds are that most of those who use our own work will not be regular users of the website and would be confused as to what exactly we are citing. A standard principle of citation (any style guide, not just EE) is that the titles of standalone publications are placed in italics, while the titles of parts of that publication are placed in quotation marks. This principle holds whether the publication is in print form or digital.

 

LATIN OR ENGLISH:

EE 2.16 “Citing Personal Names” (indexed also under “Names, personal, correcting”) will guide you here.

Also EE’s chapter 7 (Church Records) gives a number of examples of citing records that are in languages other than the one in which we are writing. (In each chapter, the international examples for that record type are at the end of each chapter.)  EE 7.16 specifically addresses non-English church books in U.S. archives. 

Again, the issue here is whether you intend for your citation to cite the imaged original or the provider’s database entry.