Format - Document vs Database approach

Hello, SeekingAnswers:

We do love those online images; but the website structures through which they are delivered can be a challenge—especially when the same site uses different structures for different record sets.

As for your "swimming in information," Oh, yeah!  It's good you have a current version of EE that begins with a QuickStart Guide.

Because of length, I'm going to answer you in two parts. This message will address your specific questions. In a separate message, I’ll address your draft citations.

(1)

“Why do we add database information in the source entry in a document approach?”

When we cite original documents, imaged online, we have two or three separate things to cite  (see EE’s QuickStart Guide > The Basics: Manuscripts & Online Images, tucked into the front of the book on grey pages):

1. The original document
2. The database and/or website that delivered the document
3. The archival location of the original, as identified by our provider.

Nos. 1 and 2 are reversible, depending upon whether we want to emphasize the document or emphasize the database. The choice usually boils down to this:

• If we have just one or two documents from the database, we may prefer emphasis on the document.
• If we have numerous items from the database, we may prefer to emphasize the database.

(2)

“I gather my other decision for my template is the use of a URL address directly to the webpage and image number vs a URL to a collection and waypoints and image number. “

EE’s QuickLessons 19, 25, and 26 go into much more detail on this, as well as the issues under (1) above.

(3)

You also ask:

  “When is a subject phrase too long? How much information needs to be in the citation if the information is contained in the text being cited?”

This issue is addressed at EE 2.7 “Discursive Notes & Overlong Citations.”  EE’s lengthy section on Vital Registrations, beginning at 9.30.

(4)

“I hope that my approach can be used throughout my project for consistency relating to information found on (mega) database providers websites.”

Consistency is ideal, in any way possible. However, consistency in citations across a range of database providers, mega or otherwise, is not possible. We do have consistent formats for citing, say:

• Articles in journals
• Books and chapters in books
• Bound records in a courthouse
• Loose documents in a courthouse
• Records in a formal archives
• Website and its database (cited like chapters in books)

However, the mega sites that provide documents do not, themselves, use consistent ways of providing those documents and our citation has to be adapted to their architecture. Nor do they use consistent ways of identifying what they are providing. As a result, our citations to even one website will vary according to how that particular set of images is delivered to us.

SeekingAnswers, the first thing I do, when someone asks me if an online citation works, is to use their citation to locate the material. Using your reference note citation for “document approach,” I hit an immediate problem.  So, let's start with Layer Two.

LAYER TWO:

Your citation of the online provider cites these elements:

Database:   "Canada, Ontario Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947,"

Descriptor:   database with images,

Website Title:  FamilySearch

Publication data:   (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1307826:  accessed 14 Feb 2023)

Pathway:                > digital film 4171539, deaths

> 1897

> no 13463-18955

> 806 through 807 of 1636

I began with your URL. A click on that delivered the search page for the collection you name. 

This search page under "more options" has a field for entering a digital film number, but when I do that, it sends me to another search form called "Search for your Ancestors." From there, your path is not usable. My alternate approach was this:

• Given the fact that we need to locate the original image, not make a general search for a person, I chose “Browse.”
• That gave me two choices (aka waypoints): “Deaths” or “Overseas Deaths.”  Since your “digital film 4171539, deaths” contained the word “deaths” rather than “overseas deaths,” I chose that waypoint. (Note that no digital film number is expressed in that waypoint. Waypoints have to be copied exactly—exact wording with no alterations, deletions, or deletions.
• From there, your citation worked.

On that basis, EE would revise your Layer 2 this way:

imaged in "Canada, Ontario Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1307826 :  accessed 14 Feb 2023) > Browse > digital film 4171539, deaths > 1897 > no 13463-18955 > 806 through 807 of 1636 images 806–7 of 1636

Explanations:

• The digital film number is not part of the path for this record set.
• The descriptor "images" is needed before the image numbers because "806 through 807 of 1636" is not a waypoint for which we should look. Image 806 and image 807 are what we look for, individually, at the final waypoint you identified.
• The condensation of the page numbers follows the "standard" set by Chicago Manual of Style, "9.61 … inclusive numbers."  (EE follows CMOS on issues of style. Other style guides beside Chicago also handle numbers this same way.)

LAYER 1:

Your Layer 1, in which you cite the document itself, provides this:

Ontario, “Death Registrations,” Item 1, Schedule C, Division of Metcalfe, p. 386-387, Henry Hawkin, died 7th August 1897, farmer of lot 9, con 4 Metcalfe, registration no 16514

I’m not sure where you got “Item 1” from. The other data is visible there on the pages you cite.  When I thumb back to the start of this register, which begins on p. 399, I see this:

 

There's a descriptor of a "unit" there, but it's "F" rather than "1".

You’ll also note that this film target gives a much fuller citation to the original record than what you’ve provided in your Layer 3 (the “citing …” layer).

 

LAYER 3:

Your draft provides this:

; imaged from FHL microfilm 1853837, citing MS-935, Registrar General, Archives of Ontario, Toronto.

1. The first image for this register identifies the source much more fully than the information you pulled from FamilySearch. When our imaged source identifies itself fully, we should use that detail—not the secondhand description created by our provider. If the images do not fully identify themselves, then we use the third layer to say that our own sources cites thus-and-such.
2. Your citation to “MS-935” does not specify what it represents. Without that, the reader has no way of knowing that it represents microfilm, especially since “MS” is the standard abbreviation for “manuscript.” The reader might assume that  it represents an archival number for the document.
3. Three different film numbers are actually provided in your citation: FS digital film 4171539, FHL/FS microfilm 1835387, and Archives of Toronto microfilm MS-935.  The three different numbers exist because of the process through which the online image was created.
   1. The first filming was done by the Archives of Toronto, who assigned it the in-house cataloging number “microfilm MS-935.” 
   2. The Family History Library then duplicated the film for its own use and assigned to it the in-house catalog number “microfilm 1853837.”
   3. FamilySearch then made digital images to which it assigned digital film number 4171539.

For citation purposes, we evaluate the need for citing all three or just one. If the latter, then which one? In this case:

• There’s no need to cite the FS digital film number, because that’s not how you accessed the record. You accessed it through the database and a path that did not include the film number.
• There’s no need to cite the FHL microfilm number, because that’s just FHL’s cataloging number for the film created by the Archives of Toronto.
• The Archives of Toronto film number is the appropriate one to cite. Given that the first image for the cited original volume identifies also the archival series from which this microfilm was made, EE would include that in parentheses, after the microfilm number, as a further identifier.

WRAP UP:

All things considered, EE would tinker with your “Document Approach” citation this way:

Ontario, “Death Registrations,” Schedule C, Division of Metcalfe, pp. 386–87, Henry Hawkin, died 7th August 1897; imaged in "Canada, Ontario Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1307826 :  accessed 14 Feb 2023) > deaths > 1897 > no 13463-18955 > images 806–7 of 1636; imaged from microfilm MS-935 (Series RG 80-8), Archives of Ontario, Toronto.