New Family Search Cataloging

By Dave on Sat, 06/08/2024 - 14:29

Forums

I find it disconcerting that in their new cataloging scheme Family Search is disconnecting their content from the original microfilms. How can we write a proper citation without, in ES Mills' terminology, providing the "source of the source?" How do we know that a record is genuine unless we know where repositories such as Ancestry and Family Search got their images? (I know, I know: these websites are purposely setting themselves up to be publishers of record and obscuring their sources)

Here is a recent citation I created that I believe is properly complete:

Jefferson County, Ohio, Marriage Certificates, No. 4 (1831-1834), p.117; Family Search IGN 4701465, image 708; Digitization of FHL microfilm 900072, “Marriage records, v. 1-4, 1803-1838,” filmed by the Genealogical Society of Salt Lake City, Utah, at the Probate Court, Jefferson County Courthouse, Steubenville, Ohio, on 11 April 1972, from the official records (information provided on image 2 of the digitized microfilm).

Comments anybody?

Dave

Submitted byEEon Sun, 06/09/2024 - 10:11

Ah, yes, Dave. Change is disconcerting; and, when we’re working on a long-term project, changes by a provider can cause inconsistencies in the citations in our database.  That said, it happens and we can't change that.

You ask: “How do we know that a record is genuine unless we know where repositories such as Ancestry and Family Search got their images?”  In the case at hand, FamilySearch does tell us where the images came from: Jefferson County, Ohio, Probate Court.   While some providers leave us without an inkling, at FamilySearch I've never found an instance in which FS did not identify provenance.

In answer to your broader concern: In our working notes, after we clearly provide the essentials, we may add to a citation any and all information that we wish to add. At publication by a journal or commercial/academic book publisher, we would  be expected to follow a specific style—which means we would trim each citation to the essentials.

For the source you have used, an Evidence Style citation would be this (with alterations in red):

      1. Jefferson County, Ohio, “Marriage Certificates, [Vol.] No. 4, 1831–1838,”  p. 117; imaged, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org : accessed 9 June 2024), IGN 4701465 > item 4 > image 708 of 792; citing Jefferson County Probate Court, Steubenville.

Or, to include the original microfilm number, we would add the layer marked in red, below:

     1. Jefferson County, Ohio, “Marriage Certificates, [Vol.] No. 4, 1831–1838,”  p. 117; imaged, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org : accessed 9 June 2024), IGN 4701465 > item 4 > image 708 of 792; imaged from Family History Library microfilm 900072; citing Jefferson County Probate Court, Steubenville.

To highlight the layers that are involved, I’ll recolor each layer differently:

     1. Jefferson County, Ohio, “Marriage Certificates, [Vol.] No. 4, 1831–1838,”  p. 117; imaged, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org : accessed 9 June 2024), IGN 4701465 > item 4 > image 708 of 792; imaged from Family History Library microfilm 900072; citing Jefferson County Probate Court, Steubenville.

The template that applies is Template 10: Online Image (No Named Database).

To explain the alterations:

  • Title of volume. Evidence Style would put quotation marks around the words since you are copying the title from the spine exactly. Given that Marriage Certificates, No. 4 might be misunderstood to mean “Certificate No. 4 out of this batch of marriage certificates,” Evidence Style would also add an editorial clarification [Vol.] before “No. 4.”  (Also note that the closing date on the volume is 1838, rather than 1834.)
  • Bridge between layers. In layered citations,  Evidence Style adds a bridge word at the first of each new layer to link the second layer to the first so that readers will understand that they are part of the same source and not two separate sources being cited in the same sentence. Each bridge word indicates how that layer is connected to what came before. In this case, the bridge words are imaged, imaged from, and citing.
  • Website title.  Evidence Style places this title in italics as is traditional for titles of all standalone publications. A website title is the equivalent of a book title and is formatted the same.
  • URL and date. This is a standard part of an online publication, just as place of publication and date are standard for print publications.
  • Item number. When FS images several different “items” (volumes or collections) on the same roll of microfilm, it is best to include the item number in the citation.
  • Image number. Because, as you first noted in your posting, many providers are dividing or combining image sets in various ways, Evidence Style recommends citing not only the image number but the total number of images in the set. This helps users of the citation (and ourselves when we come back to it a later date) ensure that they/we are using the right set.  (In a different set, even for the same material, the image numbers are usually different.)

Note also two other items:

  • FamilySearch (the organization and the library) and FamilySearch (the website) are written as one word, rather than two separate words.
  • Your draft identifies the original filming as Digitization of FHL microfilm 900072, “Marriage records, v. 1-4, 1803-1838." However, FHL microfilm does not have "titles."  Hundreds of thousands of those film offer a variety of things on one roll.  FHL creates a catalog entry with a generic description of what's on the roll, but an FHL (now FSL) cataloging description of film is not a title for the film.  (See EE4 2.41 "FamilySearch Images of Original Records.")  This is a point that FHL/FSL specifically requested EE to make when the first edition of EE was in prep during 2004–2007. Nothing has changed since.