A lot of people struggle with family history source citations. Here are three tips to make it easier, using my Six Question Model for citing sources.
Tip 1 for family history source citations
If you ever get stuck on what to include in family history source citations, think back to the purpose of citations. Then check whether your citation meets those objectives.
One of the key purposes of family history source citations is to help you find the source again. Why would you need to look it again? Perhaps you only took notes from it instead of taking a copy; or you did take a copy, but it was only an extract and now you need another part of that source.
The citation also helps another researcher find that source if they want to look at it themselves.
So, ask yourself: Does the citation provide sufficient information to find that source again? And by ‘that’ source, I do mean that particular version of the source – not another version that may be slightly different.
Example:
Poor citation: Death notice, Ryerson Index
Better citation: Death notice, James Hend, Ryerson Index www.ryersonindex.org, citing Sydney Morning Herald 22 October 1975
Tip 2 for family history source citations
Many repositories provide suggestions for citing family history sources. Some provide a specific suggested citation. Others provide a guide to citing their sources.
In most cases, these suggestions will be adequate for your purposes. The exception might be if you were writing for a university course or a journal, as they may require a slightly different citation format.
Ancestry and FamilySearch, for example, provide suggested citations for each source on the ‘View Record’ screen. FamilySearch has the citation under the heading ‘Cite This Record’, while on Ancestry you need to click on the ‘Source’ tab above the index entry. You can also get a suggested citation after you attach an Ancestry source to your Ancestry tree by opening the record and clicking on ‘Citation Details’.
Archives generally have guides to citing the material in their collections, so look for them on their websites.
Examples:
- National Archives of Australia, Citing Archival Records – Fact Sheet 7
- NSW State Archives, Publishing and Citing State Archives
- National Archives UK, Citing Records in The National Archives.
Tip 3 for family history source citations
There are some sources that we use over and over in our research – just the details change. You can save a lot of time, and be more consistent in your citations, if you list your frequently used sources and create a template citation for each of them. Next time you use that source, you just add the new details.
Here are some of the sources that I use most frequently:
- NSW births deaths and marriages
- English censuses
- convict records
- Australian electoral rolls
More information
For a comprehensive discussion about source citations, see my article Citing Family History Sources. For more of my articles about family history source citations and documenting family history, go to the Document page.
Great article Danielle thank you. Are you able to give two template references for:
1. Personal letters exchanged between family members and
2. Personal emails exchanged between relatives?
Also what referencing style is most accepted in Australia? I note TROVE offers citations in several formats.
Thanks in advance
Cath
Hi Cath
Yes, I am happy to provide examples of those types of citations in another post soon. In Australian family history, we use the Chicago 17th A style of formatting.
Thanks again, and of course after sending my comment I continued reading my copy of “The Good Genealogist” and their were reference examples and importantly frameworks for citing different sources. It’s a great book, congratulations.