Source of the Source

Hello,

 

Here is my citation as I currently have it:

 

“Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935,” database with images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com:  accessed 17 June 2023) > St George, Hanover Square > 1792-1798, no. 783, marriage of Leonard Gibson and Ann Sweeting, 9 November 1796; citing “City of Westminster Archives Centre; London, England; Westminster Church of England Parish Registers; Reference:  STG/PR/7/8.”

 

On FamilySearch, I usually enter the full URL (since it explicitly states it is an ARK address).  But for Ancestry, I usually use a path, as above.  I'd love to know your opinion on this.  I always test my citation as if I were a future reader needing to access the source, and in this case I am able to find the specific item cited - although without a direct URL, it does take some "digital page flipping" to get to record no. 783. 

 

Furthermore, the database name (as it is given on Ancestry) doesn't come up in the Card Catalog when I copy and paste.  Instead, I entered "Westminster, London, England, Church of England" and was presented with four results.  I chose "Westminster, London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1558-1812" and from there "Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935" came up as a Related Data Collection.  That makes me a little nervous about the accuracy of my citation.

 

My big issue is with the source of the source.  I tried accessing the records on the City of Westminster Archives, but could not find anything.  I assume the reference refers to St George (STG) Parish (PR), but I am not certain.  I took Ancestry's source information and put it in quotes (as I think I remember reading in EE that is what you are supposed to do if you copy it verbatim and without any verification.  If Ancestry went out of business tomorrow, I'm not confident that I could easily get to the source documents using that information.

 

Thoughts?  Thanks in advance!

Submitted byEEon Mon, 06/19/2023 - 14:48

spcchap, you've done well. And yes, when reporting what our source cites as its own source, (a) we often find our source's "citation" to be insufficient; and (b) copying verbatim, with quotation marks, is wise when we recognize there's a problem.