Manage source citations in Notion

Depending on the type of family history information you store in Notion, you may need to include source citations. Here is a discussion of how that could be achieved.

This is Post 8 in my Notion for Family History series.

Where should you store family history source citations?

Source citations should ideally be stored in the same place as the information that you extract from them. This assists in further research and documentation.

A lot of family history information is stored in family history software or online family tree, so it is logical to store your master list of source citations there.

However, some family history research is not documented in a family tree. If you store that research in Notion, then it would be good to store your citations for that research in Notion.

Family history research notes in Notion

Family history research in Notion requiring citations might include:

• research notes about a place, theme, family or person
• notes from a book, journal article, website
• analytical notes
• draft evidence summaries and evidence arguments
• preparation for a lecture or workshop.

Citing sources in Notion

Unfortunately, even though it is a note-taking app, Notion does not provide a footnoting system. Footnotes have to be added manually.

The simplest approach to managing source citations in Notion is to include footnotes and a list of references on each Notes page.

Add the numbers manually at the end of a sentence and then type the citation in footnote format at the end of the Note.

The problem with this option is that each Note has its own set of citations.

Of course, you may have some Notes where all the information came from a single source. For example, notes from a book. For such Notes you may choose to add the citation as another column in your Notes Database. However, that does not work for Notes that draw on multiple sources.

Set up your Source Citations Database

You can collect all the source citations used within your Notion workspace in a Source Citations Database and ‘relate’ it to your Notes Database.

You will first need to set up your Foundational Databases, or, as a minimum, a Notes Database. Instructions provided in my article, Manage family history projects with Notion.

Instructions

Click on your Home Page under the title somewhere. Or, if you have already set up a Resources Page you could add the Source Citations Database on that Page.

Type /data and a list of database-type blocks will pop up. Choose the second one, Database – Full Page.

This will open up a new Page with an empty Database on it.

The light grey text on this new Database Page that says Untitled is both the name of the Page and the name of the Database. Click on it and name it Source Citations.

Hover your mouse above the title and click on the text that says Add icon. Click on the dot to choose a colour, then choose an icon for source citations. I just use the asterisk symbol.

Next you add columns to your Database.

Column 1 is automatically called Name. Change that to Title 1.

Add new columns (called Properties in Notion), by clicking on the + sign next to the existing column. The Property type determines the kind of data you can enter in that column and how it is formatted.

Add six columns, with the Text Property Type.

Column 2 – Rename the column as Short Citation.

Column 3 – Author

Column 4 – Location

Column 5 – Publisher

Column 6 – Year (note, do not choose date format as it does not allow you to just insert a year)

Add column 7, and choose Select as the Property Type. This allows you to type a list. Rename it to Tags or Keywords. You will be able to use this column to filter the database by the tags or keywords.

Add two more Text columns.

Column 8 – Title 2 (Some source types, such as journals or websites need two titles)

Column 9 – Full citation

Separating each part of the citation into a different column allows you to sort and filter by those columns, which you will find very useful. However, it is also useful to have a column containing the full citation for when you want to copy and paste it.

Every citation that you add to the Database will get its own Page, but you do not need to do anything further with these pages.

Connect it to your Notes Database

Open your Notes Database (click on link on your Home Page).

Add another column by clicking on the + sign in the header row of the Database. Choose Relation as the Property type. That will bring up a list of Databases that you have in your workspace. Choose Source Citations (your new database), then select Two-way Relation, and click the blue button labelled Add relation.

You have now related your Notes Database and your Source Citations Database to each other.

Assigning Notes to Source Citations

Although the two databases are related, you still need to assign a Note to a Citation.

In the Notes Database, click on the row for the relevant Note in the column labelled Source Citation. Search for the appropriate citation and select it.

Alternatively, in the Source Citations Database, click on the row for the relevant citation in the Notes column. Search for the appropriate Note and select it.

You can assign multiple Citations to each Note, and have multiple Notes assigned to a Citation.

Assigning a Citation within a Note

The process described above only assigns a citation to a Notes page. It does not add the citation to a piece of information within the Note.

To assign a citation to a specific piece of information within a Note, you could:

• Use footnotes and add a page link to the citation inside the footnote (see image below), or
• Use the Harvard referencing style and put the Short Citation (Author, year) in brackets at the end of the sentence. This option does not add a page link, but I find it sufficient in most cases.

Let me know if you try this out and have any suggestions for improving either the process or the instructions.