Question about Electoral Register Citation

Curtisk2, are you intentionally wanting to cite Ancestry's database entry instead of the actual image?

Curtisk2, let’s break this query down into four parts:

1. Difference between citing a database entry and citing an image.

Going back again to the QuickStart Guide, note specifically the page headed “The Basics: Manuscripts & Online Images.” There you’ll see this:

“When an original manuscript is digitized online, we have two sources to cite in full—the original document and the website.”

[Examples]

“When we use a database with abstracts of records rather than images, our citation emphasizes the database and its entry, rather than the document.”

[Example]

There’s a radical difference between (a) citing the original document which you have read and analyzed for yourself; and (b) citing a database entry in which Ancestry extracts a few selected details for us, and adds the expected copying errors.

2. Electoral registers and the fact that EE has no specific example for them.

As you continue this journey into the past you’ve just embarked on, you’ll rapidly discover that there are thousands of record types in this world for which EE’s 892 pages provides no explicit example.  (If I halfway tried, EE would be the size of the OED!)

You will notice that EE is divided into chapters according to record type (censuses, church records, local & state registrations, etc.). Within each of these chapters, most records follow the same basic pattern for that type. The pattern then differs according to the media we are using for that type of record: e.g., a hands-on original register or file, an online image, a database extract, a transcription, etc. Regardless of what label is on the cover of the record, we use one basic format and then adapt as needed.

EE’s 9.23 covers “Voter Rolls,” the American equivalent of what you are citing.  The media that is used in this example is the original document. This provides you with a pattern to use for your English electoral registers, when you are citing the original. 

3. The citation itself.

Now you have two options:

1. Cite the imaged original you found at Ancestry. Layer 1: you follow the basic pattern for the original (but don’t include the repository that you did not actually visit). For Layer 2: you follow the basic pattern for citing an Ancestry database. For Layer 3: you report whatever source-data Ancestry provided for its image. With this option—using the imaged original—we would specify that the record was imaged, rather than saying that we are using the database entry.
2. Cite Ancestry’s database entry.  We would not normally cite this if we are also citing the original image. We’d cite the database entry only if (1) no image was provided; or (2) there was an error in the provider’s database entry that we need to discuss and/or correct.  To cite the database entry: Layer 1 would cite the database and the specific entry in that database following the basic pattern you've used for your Layer 1. Layer 2 would then report whatever source-data Ancestry provided for its image, as you've done. Here, as you also did, we would specify that our information is taken from a database entry.

4. The Subsequent Reference Note

If you were to find this shortened footnote in someone else's work, would you be able to relocate that at Ancestry, from the data in this short form? If, ten years from now when your recollection of the source has gone cold, would you know which database at Ancestry carried this entry for George William Whitehouse?  (Same issue we discussed in the earlier thread.)

Curtisk2:

For certain, family history research was a lot simpler 40 years ago when most people worked from books or magazines—two basic formats we all learned how to cite in our secondary school days. Today, we have online access to so many wonderful but confusing records, delivered to us by all sorts of providers who structure their websites in all kinds of ways. It can be overwhelming until we learn the basics.

You state:

“I don’t completely understand ‘why’ I structured [my citation] this way, what information goes where. Without seeing an example I’m struggling to understand why certain information goes in a certain place.” 

Two issues exist here:

Issue 1

You haven't provided an image of the document you are trying to cite or a URL that takes us to the image.  We need that, especially since the citation you provide does not allow us to locate your record.  The query form for that database at Ancestry asks for location. When I type in “Solihull,” I have only 2 options, neither of which is in West Midlands or Midlands.

If I type in “West Midlands” for the location, I get 11 hits:

However, from the data in your reference note, I cannot tell which of these 11 is the correct one. I have gone into each of the 11 and none of those George W. Whitehouses were in “Solihull” or the “West Midlands”

Can you provide the exact URL for the image?

Issue 2:

In earlier queries here, you provided screen shots of the data management program into which you are entering your data. That software offers you options that use record labels they copied from EE.  If you’re trying to work from that alone, you will not understand the records you are using or the logic on which citations are structured.

And so, I have to ask:  Do you have a copy of EE?  If so:

• Have you had time to study EE's first two chapters that provides a basic understanding of sources, evidence analysis, and citations? 
• Have you had time to study the QuickCheck Guide tipped into the front of EE?  Here, we introduce two basic formats, with models:
  • Publications (books and websites)
  • Manuscripts & Online Images  

Everyone goes through what you are going through right now. When a family search begins, it’s natural to want to jump right into the records. Identifying where our information comes from seems like a nuisance. But if we do not understand the records we use, we will quite soon make mistakes of identity and judgment. We will, quite soon, be spending our time working on individuals who are no kin to us, because of those mistakes.

Studying EE’s first two chapters may seem like a waste of time, but those chapters are there to help you save time and avoid frustration.

Going back to the QuickStart Guide: You are working with

1. a record that has been imaged
2. a website that provides those images

Therefore, you have two things to cite: the imaged record and the website.  The QuickStart guide provides examples for each type. Those examples do not include Ancestry's database for English electoral rolls, but the purpose here is to learn the basic formats, so you adapt them to whatever you find.

More specifically, you are using electoral rolls—i.e., voter rolls. EE covers this type of record in Chapter 9. “Local & State Records: Licenses, Registrations, Rolls & Vital Records.”

You will also note that this chapter (and all source chapters) begins with two things:

• Several gray pages on which we diagram citations to different types of rolls, registrations, etc.—explicitly stating what each field of the citation represents.
• Basic instruction that helps researchers understand that broad category of records

Then, when each new type of record is introduced (certificates, jury lists, licenses, voter rolls), we discuss the quirks that exist in that type of record that need to be considered. We give models showing how to adapt the basic citation to those quirks. The discussions that accompany each type of model  help us understand the templates you find in your data management program.

Each time you use a different type of record, it's human nature to just look for that type, but please do take the time to read the explanatory material for that record type.

Elizabeth

P.S. I see that you've placed several other queries. I'll answer those as soon as possible.