Unindexed- Court Case Files-FamilySearch

Question 1:

Use of the quotation marks.  If I am going to cite a specific document in a case file that is imaged on FamilySearch, do I include the title of the document in quotes and also the case file folder label in quotes?  Looking through other examples in EE (like land files) the [document] or [item of interest] is not included inside quotation marks. 

If a document or folder has a specific title or label, then it is best practice to copy that specific title or label exactly, and to place in quotation marks the words that we have copied.  There are many examples of this in EE.

Does it make a difference if the item of interest has a title on it such as "Inventory" or "SUBPOENA"?

Oh, yeah! Google, for example: “Subpoena vs. Summons.”

In this case, you cite “Summons, 30 Dec 1880” in Layer 1 in which you identify the record itself. Then in Layer 2, the identification of the online provider, you cite images 908–909.  However,

• the subpoena, issued by the court on 30 December, appears on images 907–908 (back and front)

• the summons, created and delivered by the sheriff’s office on 31 December, appears on image 909.

Even when the labels on the documents are not confusingly similar to laymen, we need to know the nature of the document—both we and readers of our citation. It makes a difference in the evaluation process. The information we expect to find on an inventory, for example, is far different from what we expect to find on a subpoena. If we don’t specify the type of document then later, as we do another round of correlation and analysis, we will wonder: Hmhh. Why did the document say this and not that? What kind of a document was this? Should that document have specified what we now realize is missing? Etc.

Question 2:

My second question is the order of the citation.  I assume that it is OK to lead with the document/item of interest rather than the Jurisdiction and Series?  In the EE example p381 the structure is going from largest to smallest, e.g.  [Jurisdiction] > [Series] > [Case info] > "[item of interest]".  If I lead with the specific document should the structure be smallest to largest similar to NARA citations?

The sequence in which we cite an original document usually depends upon the structure of the archives or office. As a general rule

• Documents created by and held by local government offices are most clearly structured when we begin with the name of the office that authored/created the record.  Chapters 8, 9, and 10 “Local and State Records,” demonstrate this approach.

• Documents held by formal archives—typically university archives, state archives, and national archives—are typically, widely diverse records collected from many entities and then organized  into one single structure favored by that facility.  That structure is described in Chapter 3 “Archives & Artifacts” at EE 3.1 Archival Arrangements and Chapter 11 "National Government Records."  That structure is based on small-to-large (the American system) or large-to-small (more common internationally).  Both Chapters 3 and 11 demonstrate this approach.

That said, in the world of historical records almost nothing is simple and clear-cut.  Local government records, for example, are often

• transferred to archives elsewhere and then integrated into that archive’s organizational structure in various ways that affect the details we need to record; or

• imaged by libraries, archives, and online providers who may or may not reorganize and relabel records, which also affects how we cite a record; or

• imaged by one entity, in one period of time, and then later digitized by another, which can also affects details that we record (the situation in which our Layer 3 will begin with imaged from …)

Question 3:

R. J. [Richard] Livingston, Summons, 30 Dec 1880, Walla Walla County, Washington, Territorial District Court case files, folder: "Territorial Case Files - Series II - #2583 Mill Creek Flume Co. v. Livingston;"  digital images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog : downloaded 15 February 2022) > DGS 7470369 > images 908-909 of 1274; imaged from First Judicial District Court Case 2583, The Mill Creek Flume and Manufacturing Co v. R.J. Livingston, 1890, Eastern Washington Regional State Archive, Cheney, Washington.

Q: Unsure if [item of interest/document] should be considered a separate layer ending with a semi-colon after [Date]?

No. Your uncertainty here stems from the fact that you are trying to cite this online record image as though you had personally visited a formal archives and plowed through the organizational hierarchy to get to the document you used. 

If you were using the original records at the U.S. National Archives, you’d be following this hierarchy (EE 3.1 or EE 11.1):

Item of interest by name, date, etc.; File Unit Name, Dates, Etc.; Series Name, Dates, Etc.; Subgroup Name, Dates, Etc.; Record Group No.: Name; Archives, Location.

Each of these entities would be in a separate layer, separated by a semicolon because of one basic punctuation rule that applies to all our writing:  When items in a series have internal commas, we use semicolons to separate the items.  If we did not do this with National Archives records, for example, anyone who read the typical citation would not know whether a set of years appearing between, say, “File Unit Name” and “Series Name” applied to the File or the Series. The semicolon makes a clear break between separate items so there is no ambiguity.

With online images, we have two to three different “items in a series” to cite.  Each of these again have the semicolon to separate the details of one item from the other. In the case at hand we have three distinctly different items that need to be clearly separated—for which we use the semicolon:

• Layer 1: the record, as imaged;

• Layer 2: the online provider;

• Layer 3: the source-of-the-source information that the provider gives us.

So … Question 4

What is the best way to handle this set of records?

Your focus on the QCM at 381 is a wise one.  It’s a court record, created by a “local” government agency, now imaged online. The only thing it does not cover is your need for a Layer 3.

Your citation is this:

R. J. [Richard] Livingston, Summons, 30 Dec 1880, Walla Walla County, Washington, Territorial District Court case files, folder: "Territorial Case Files - Series II - #2583 Mill Creek Flume Co. v. Livingston;"  digital images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog : downloaded 15 February 2022) > DGS 7470369 > images 908-909 of 1274; imaged from First Judicial District Court Case 2583, The Mill Creek Flume and Manufacturing Co v. R.J. Livingston, 1890, Eastern Washington Regional State Archive, Cheney, Washington.

All things considered, EE’s citation would be this:

Walla Walla County, Washington, County Clerk, District Court case files, folder: "Territorial Case Files - Series II - #2583 Mill Creek Flume Co. v. Livingston," subpoena and summons issued to R. J. [Richard] Livingston, 30–31 December 1880; digital images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog : downloaded 15 February 2022) > DGS 7470369 > images 855 and 907-909 of 1274; citing First Judicial District Court Case 2583, The Mill Creek Flume and Manufacturing Co v. R.J. Livingston, 1890, Eastern Washington Regional State Archive, Cheney, Washington.

or if one preferred to use the exact URL and/or path:

Walla Walla County, Washington, County Clerk, District Court case files, folder: "Territorial Case Files - Series II - #2583 Mill Creek Flume Co. v. Livingston," subpoena and summons issued to R. J. [Richard] Livingston, 30–31 December 1880; digital images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9ZN-JR3H?i=907&cc=1910364&cat=2000535: downloaded 15 February 2022) > Washington, County Records, 18083-2010 > Walla Walla > Case files 1868-1889 2nd series no. 2525-2601 > images 855 and 907-909 of 1274; citing First Judicial District Court Case 2583, The Mill Creek Flume and Manufacturing Co v. R.J. Livingston, 1890, Eastern Washington Regional State Archive, Cheney, Washington.

Specifically, the differences are these:

 

SEQUENCE OF ELEMENTS:

As shown in the QCM at p. 381, the basic pattern is:

Author/Creator= Jurisdiction, Series, Case File No., Case Label, Court Term, Item of Interest, Record date;

In this case the series, case file no., and case label are all part of the label on the folder that, yes, needs to have quotation marks around it because you have copied exactly what is on that label.

With regard to the Author/Creator = Jurisdiction, you lead with this phrase:

R. J. [Richard] Livingston, Summons, 30 Dec 1880,

This creates an ambiguity:  R. J. Livingston was the author/creator of that summons?  No.  The record was created by the Office of the County Clerk, Walla Walla, which was charged with maintaining the records of the District Court that sat at Walla Walla.  This is the fundamental reason why citations to local government documents lead with the name of the author.

 

IMAGE NUMBERS:

You cited the image numbers on which the subpoena and summons appear. EE would also cite the image number from which you took the folder’s identification. 

Curt, many roads lead to Rome, as the old cliché goes. However, if we use relational databases with a built-in citation framework and we begin with the specific item of interest, then each specific item will end up as a "Master Source" in our Source List. Most researchers don't want that to happen.

Even if we are not using a relational database to manage our citations and we create every citation free-form, then either

• Our Source List Entry matches the sequence of elements in our Reference Note, in which case, every document we use is individually listed in the Source List; or
• We arrange our Source List by jurisdiction with record series arranged under it, which would make it more difficult for users of our citation to match an individual document cited in the Ref Note with the location and series cited in the Source List.

Conversely, if we lead with the jurisdiction/agency as author, then

• That jurisdiction/agency becomes the Master Source for which, once we select it from our source list, the software populates all essential elements except the field for the specific item of interest.
• within our Source List, we don't have dozens or hundreds of individually listed court records (or courthouse records) itemized under whatever random letter of the alphabet the specific document happens to start with. Instead, all those disparate court records are organized under the geographic locale.

EE 2.47 through 2.54 discusses this more fully.

 

That works, too. Curtis. EE's one difference would be to cite the book fully in standard form, which means (a) putting William Green in the standard position for author of book, before the book title, so that users of the citation will understand that this is not the name they are to look for on p. 3; and (b) including the name of the publisher of the book.

 

Curtis, the basic rule for quotation marks is this: we use them when we're quoting. That means "copying exactly." We don't use them if we're composing our own description, but we're not quoting anything.  Chapters 1 and 2 (the "Fundamentals" chapters) cover the basics at

• 1.22  Abstracts vs. extracts
• 2.22 Citing Titles, Basic Rules
• 2.71 Placement of Punctuation: Quotation Marks
• 2.72 Quotation marks
• 2.76 Titles

Also see more source-specific discussions and examples at 3.1, 3.5, 3.11, 3.12, 3.20, 3.40, 4.19, 4.20, 4.23, 4.27, 5.7, 6.34, 6.37, 7.13, 7.14, 7.16, 7.18, 7.38, 7.40, 8.18, 8.32, 9.42, 9.49, 9.57, 10.5, 10.24, 10.27, 10.29, 11.1, 11.32, 12.24, 13.7, 14.2, 14.4, 14.7, 14.26 and Glossary (p. 819) for abstract, extract, and plagiarism.  If you lose track of this message down the line, you can also look in the index for "quotation marks, use of."