Recording Sources of Information
Author: Robert W. Penry @ 2021
As we work on our family history, we find information in many sources such as newspapers (births, death, obituaries, burial, marriage, occupations), books, the Web, Certificates and licenses of all kinds (birth, death, marriage, etc.), census records, GEDCOM files, back of photograph, family bibles, court records, maps, deeds and other property records, interviews, E-Mail and written correspondence, tombstones, and library books and documents. The list is nearly unlimited.
What is important is that you record the source of all information. If you enter information, can you prove it is correct? Was the source reliable. If you ask your Grandmother about her grandparents, will she remember accurately?
In most genealogy programs you are able to classify a source with terms such as Proven, Reliable, Unsubstantiated, Unknown, or Unreliable. Each program has different terms and choices to use.
The entry of the source information is called a citation. There are specific formats for citations. For a book it is Author, Title, Publisher, Date, Page Number. A photo would have different format.
There are some very good instructional videos and web articles for entering sources:
Basics of a Genealogy Source Citation | Ancestry – YouTube
Crafting Source Citations in Your Ancestry Tree | Ancestry – YouTube
Citations: A Guide to Creating Proper Source Citations – St. Louis Genealogical Society (stlgs.org)
Examples of Genealogical Source Citations (National Institute) • FamilySearch
Easier Source Citation With Your Genealogy Software (familytreemagazine.com)
Computer Programs usually have help sections. One of those sections would be about citations. samples of the citations help areas for Roots Magic and Ancestral Quest are shown below.
Don’t forget to enter your citations for your sources in your program. I have spent many hours going back and trying to find where I found information because I didn’t bother entering the source. BAD MISTAKE!. Don’t you repeat it!
This table should help you preparing citations from several sources.RECORDING SOURCES | |||||
| Sources | Hint | Types | Author | Title | Repository |
| Family Search | This general citation format applies to information received from Internet databases as well as online transcriptions and indexes (i.e. if you find a cemetery transcription on the Internet, you would enter it as a Web site source. You would not include the cemetery as your source unless you had visited personally) | Internet | familySearch.org | Family Search | Family History Library, 35 N West Temple St, Salt Lake City, UT 84150 USA |
| Ancestry.com | This general citation format applies to information received from Internet databases as well as online transcriptions and indexes (i.e. if you find a cemetery transcription on the Internet, you would enter it as a Web site source. You would not include the cemetery as your source unless you had visited personally) | Internet | Ancestry.com | Ancestry | |
| Find-a-Grave | This general citation format applies to information received from Internet databases as well as online transcriptions and indexes (i.e. if you find a cemetery transcription on the Internet, you would enter it as a Web site source. You would not include the cemetery as your source unless you had visited personally) | Internet | Find-A-Grave.com | Find-a-Grave | |
| Cemetery | Individual Name, then tombstone, then location | Cemetery | (cem name, location) | Tombstone Data | (cem name, location) |
| Census | 1920 U.S. census, population schedule, Brookline, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Enumeration District [ED] 174, sheet 8, dwelling 110, family 172, Frederick A. Kerry household; National Archives microfilm publication T625, roll 721; digital image, Ancestry.com, http://www.ancestry.com (accessed 28 July 2004). | Internet | State, County, | (1910 U.S. Census population schedule | Where did I find the info? |
| DAR Application | Supplemental application of (submitter’s name), national number, volume no, name of veteran | Military | Daughters of the American Revolution | (Application of) | The National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington D.C |
| Ships Register | John Smith, Passenger List, ship “Brooklyn”, New York Harbour, Dec 22, 1845 | Passenger List of (name of ship) | |||
| Vital Record (Birth, Marriage, Death) | Record 1) type of record and name(s) of the individual(s), 2) the file or certificate number (or book and page) and 3) name and location of the office in which it is filed (or the repository in which the copy was found – e.g. archives). | Vital | State of, County of, City of | Persons Name & Type of Cert & data | Where is certificate filed? (if you have copy, put under Publication Facts) |
| Directory | City Directory | (Author of directory) | (City) directory | ||
| Who from/to | Email message to/from | ||||
| IGI | Index | The Church of … | International Genealogical Index (IGI) | ||
| Letter | Letter from Patrick Owens (put mailing address here) to Kimberly Thomas Powell, 9 January 1998; held in 2001 by Powell (put mailing address here). [You can include an annotation or personal comment here.] | Letter | |||
| Newspaper Clipping (Marriage, Obituary, etc.) | Be sure to include the name of the newspaper, the place and date of publication, the page and column number. | Newspaper | blank | (Name of Newspaper) | |
| Periodical | Include the month/year or season, rather than issue number where possible. | Periodical | Name of Publisher | Name of Article, then Name of Periodical | |
| SocSecDeathIndex | Web | (which web site contains it? | Social Security Death Index | Social Security Death Index – online at ***.com | |
| Web | This general citation format applies to information received from Internet databases as well as online transcriptions and indexes (i.e. if you find a cemetery transcription on the Internet, you would enter it as a Web site source. You would not include the cemetery as your source unless you had visited personally) | Internet | |||
| Book | List author (or compiler or editor) first, followed by the title, publisher, publication place and date, and page numbers. List multiple authors in the same order as shown on the title page unless there are more than three authors, in which case, include only the first author followed by et al. Citations for one volume of a multivolume work should include the number of the volume used. | Book | Name of Publisher | Title of Article, then Title of Book | |
| Family Group Sheet | When you use data which has been received from others, you should always document the data as you receive it and not use the original sources cited by the other researcher. | ||||
| Interview | Interview with Charles Bishop Koth (interviewees address here), by Kimberly Thomas Powell, 7 August 1999. Transcript held in 2001 by Powell (put mailing address here). [You can include an annotation or personal comment here.] | ||||
| Always cite what you actually see (for instance if you are looking at an index, cite it – not the source it indexes) why? Derivative data may not be correct. | |||||