WeRelate talk:Source Committee

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Purpose of this Page

This project page has been created for a "Source Committee" to discuss, among other things, ways to standardize the source list. This project has grown out of a disussion that began at WeRelate_talk:Sources with additional comments at WeRelate_talk:Source_page_titles. Everyone is welcome to participate. Your input is needed and greatly appreciated.

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Purpose of Sources

The discussion (below) that's going back and forth is making me realize that people use sources for different purposes. And these purposes should probably inform how we go about creating a source "index" or "library" here on the wiki:

  1. On a wiki, a source is used to give credibility to the information posted. One could argue that sources on genealogy web pages (such as WorldConnect) are also used for this purpose-- to distinguish a well-researched GEDCOM from one that was clearly and simply copied. I certainly look for that when I'm browsing WorldConnect.
  2. In genealogy research, generally, a source's primary purpose is to help either the researcher or those who come after her/him to be able to find again the source for that particular piece of information. Did I get it from looking at an article published in NEHGS Register? Did I view the actual original record?

A source is -- in and of itself -- neither good nor bad. It's WHERE we found a piece of information. In this regard, I think it's extremely important to convey the distinction. For example:

One could argue that the "source" for most if not all of these is the same, but it's not. And both the impact on its quality (Purpose #1 above) and where a researcher can go to find it (Purpose #2 above) is different for each.

Jillaine 10:20, 15 July 2007 (MDT)

I think everyone would agree that good source citation will distinguish between those six ways of finding a Pfarramt marriage record. The question before us is, where and how should we agree to show those distinctions? Should each of them have its own separately named Source Page?
My tentative first take on this question is, no. If I found the Pfarramt marriage record in a user-contributed IGI entry, then cite the source page titled "International Genealogical Index." That page would cover the whole IGI, because we'll go nuts if we try to have a separate source page for every IGI entry (for one thing, there are beaucoup duplicates in IGI). On the person page or wherever I'm citing that, I explain what kind of IGI entry it was and give its URL. Same thing if it's an extraction record. (In a perfect world, it would be nice to make separate Source Pages for different kinds of IGI entries, but then a lot of folks would have trouble figuring out what kind if was they had, or might have made no note of it in the first place.)
Again, my first take on the last four items is that they would all refer back to one source page, which since it has a title but no author, would be called "Germany, Baden-Wurttemberg, Pfarramt, Marriage Records." Again, the relevant distinctions between seeing the microfilm, seeing a photocopy sent by a third party, seeing the record itself, and possessing the original certificate, can be made where you're citing it. The Source Page would contain information about those marriage records in general, such as all the various ways and places to find them (microfilm, original repository, transcriptions), but again, I don't think we want to have individual Source Pages for every Pfarramt marriage.
I'm not suggesting we have a different source for every marriage, but I would distinguish between marriages found in the records of Schwenningen Evangelische Church as filmed on FHL# 1658748 and the extraction of same found on an IGI Batch file M123456. Having typed that, I realize it's completely reasonable for someone to use only "Schwenningen Evangelische Church Records" as their source, and then put in the page field either the IGI batch # or the FHL film # etc. Jillaine 12:55, 15 July 2007 (MDT)

--Hh219 10:45, 15 July 2007 (MDT)

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Tasks

Dallan has given the committee some ideas or talking points to start the ball rolling. His comments have been copied from WeRelate_talk:Sources:

--Dallan


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Types of Sources

One of the things I think we need to quickly reach a decision on is the TYPES of sources we are going to categorize. Wrhelp has already done a great job of listing the various types on WeRelate_talk:Source_page_titles. Once we settle on the TYPES, then we should decide on how each TYPE should be formatted for the source title (again, Wrhelp has outlined most of this, we just need to reach a decision). Then decide on templates and finally, what fields should be "tracked" in the search results as Dallan mentioned above.--Ronni 01:49, 14 July 2007 (MDT)

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What Elizabeth Shown Mills Says about Source Types

From: Skillbuilding: Citing Your Sources Added by Jillaine 10:05, 15 July 2007 (MDT)

Book:


Periodical article:


Original record:


Jillaine, thank you. Now we're looking at things that might be in our template for various types of sources, once we've settled on certain types and in what format to name their pages. What boxes do we want to have in editing the Source Page for folks to fill out?
The current one-size-fits-all source template has some nice features I wouldn't want to lose: boxes for surnames covered, places covered, and year range. These are not necessary when you're writing up your research, but in a wiki another purpose of source listings is to help searchers find relevant sources.
Book template: obviously for our wiki purposes the title has its own box, and doesn't need to be entered in italics. I like the idea of having separate boxes for place of publication, date of publication, and publisher. That saves me having to think (as we do at present), oh dear, what counts as "publication information"? Obviously the page number should go in your citation, not on the Source Page.
As discussed elsewhere, another wiki purpose is to let people know all the different ways they can get ahold of this book (or any other authored document). This gets complicated, as there are types of locations (libraries, online databases) and multiple locations within each. (Dallan has discussed this elsewhere WeRelate talk:Sources8.3.) And since we'll have a new namespace for repositories, none of these templates needs to include repository locations.
Same thoughts on the periodical template: no need for itals or quotes since article and journal title are in their own template boxes, and the actual page numbers belong in the citation itself, not on the Source Page.
I'm not sure the "original record" is a helpful starting template for us, since it seems to assume that every individual record would have its own Source Page. I don't think we could cope with having every single individual's WWI draft card having its own Source Page!

--Hh219 11:04, 15 July 2007 (MDT)

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Discusssion of Source Types

Here is a rough draft of the TYPES as I see it. Add to, delete and/or combine: --Ronni 01:49, 14 July 2007 (MDT)



I think one of our goals is to limit the number of types, but yet at the same time, make it so a type will be so clearly defined that it will be relatively easy for a user to add their source to the index into one of these types. --Ronni 01:49, 14 July 2007 (MDT)

We might want to look at most common genealogy programs to see what source type definitions they use. I use Family Treemaker, and its source types are:
Not saying that we should use all of these, but that's what a lot of people will be familiar with and what may also be imported with GEDCOMs. Jillaine 06:33, 14 July 2007 (MDT)


I'm wondering if we're re-inventing the wheel a bit here? Over at WeRelate_talk:Source_page_titles Dallan made a rough draft of types of sources which basically divided them into 3 types:
  • those with authors (such as most books and manuscripts). Their source pages would be named "author surname, author first name, title".
  • those without authors but with titles (such as newspapers and periodicals). Their source pages would be named, "title".
  • those with neither authors nor titles but associated with places (such as vital records, cemeteries). Their source pages would be named "country, state, county, place".
I like this because it seems pretty straightforward. Two questions: (1) is this a good way to divide things up very generally? and, (2) is this exhaustive? What sources don't fall into any of these three bins? (Dallan also had a category for websites and message boards that contain original information, but I'm wondering if they can't be sorted into these three bins.)
Assuming that this setup or something similar is appropriate to start with, then we would need to think about what templates we need *within* each bin.--Hh219 12:53, 14 July 2007 (MDT)

Creating a source page will be a two-step process for the user. First they are confronted with how to format the title of the source page. This process needs to have just a few, very simple "rules" to follow. Once the user gets to the template portion of setup, then they will be confronted with the finer details of their source, where I actually think the bulk of our discussion has been focused. Hh291 has reminded us that most of these "rules" have already been laid out for us at WeRelate_talk:Source_page_titles. While reading the discussion, I think I've come to the understanding that the TYPE of source is not initially that important when contructing the source title. It's how they answer the following questions as to how the title gets formatted: --Ronni 01:02, 16 July 2007 (MDT)

(1) Does this source have a clearly distinct author AND title?

Format: <Author (last name, first name). Title>
(NOTE: a "period" is used instead of a "comma" between author and title)

(2) Does this source have a title, but no distinct author?

Format: <Title>

(3) Does this source have neither a distinct title or author?

I actually see #3 as being subdivided into asking whether its a CENSUS or a WEBSITE or a MESSAGE FORUM (and other types I'm sure) as I see slightly different formatting problems for each, one being the number of characters we are limited to. I believe it was once suggested that websites have the URL included in the title. I don't believe that would work because of the length of some of the URLs.

When I refer to "asking" the user a series of questions, I wasn't meaning that literally, but now I wonder if source page creation can not be designed like a flowchart type thing? A setup wizard perhaps? --Ronni 01:02, 16 July 2007 (MDT)

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Repositories [4 December 2007]

Aside from the sources, we also need to be thinking of templates for repositories. As it is now, repositories are included in the source index. The goal is to make "repositories" a new namespace.

Dallan suggested for starters that the fields to be filled in for a repository would be address, phone, URL, and of course a description field. Are there other things?
Call me crazy, but I'm actually excited about having repository pages. They can be the go-to place when you're headed out to Newark, Ohio, or to Montpelier, Vermont, and you want to know the straight skinny about where you're going, all the way from where to park and eat and walk the dog, to whether they use Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress. They can be where you can tell about the quirky local resources that are there and nowhere else, that don't always get on the libraries' web pages.
Are ancestry and heritagequest repositories? How about the various genealogical society websites with useful information?

--Hh219 19:54, 14 July 2007 (MDT)

We'll have to agree on the definition of what a repository is before we can decide on what constitutes a repository. Calling upon my own definition, I believe Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest are repositories. But what about a family website? Is it a source or a repository? --Ronni 02:22, 16 July 2007 (MDT)
The thing that really identifies a "source" of information is that you or others can go back to it, to be certain that it says what you think it says (verification). If you find something on Ancestry, say in one of its historical data bases, you can indeed go back to it, more or less anytime you want, more or less indefintely...Assuming Ancestry continues in operation in one form or another. In theory, you should go for the original, but in practice, using Ancestry as a surrogate for the original seems reasonable---but probaby what you need to do is cite the original source with the "fide Ancestry....tag". But if you can't go back to the original, its not a useful source of information.
And that's what makes things like personal web pages, or GEDCOM's on Ancestry, etc., virtually useless as sources. Information on such "sources" is ephemeral at best, subject to constant change. If you use it as a source, you can almost be certain its going to dissappear on you at some point in the future. Then you can't verify what it had to say, so citing it as a source is meaningless---unless, of course, they provided the citation to THEIR source of information, which is what you'd need to follow up on---not the personal web site. And again, what probably would work best is citing the original source (assuming they give one), with the "fide tag" to indicate you are taking it on faith. That way, if all else fails, it can still be followed up.
On the other hand, if all you have is someone's personal notation, and they don't tell you where they got the information from, or its of such a nature that it can not be followed up, there's probably no point in eveing sourcing it Bill 17:18, 4 December 2007 (EST)
My sense is that a repository contains sources, so ancestry and heritage would qualify. Family websites might provide new information themselves, or contain, say, transcriptions or excerpts from elsewhere, so they could actually be both at the same time. But when I'm doing data entry I don't want to have to think that hard. So I'd rather treat them as sources. Would that create any problems, really, aside from being a bit impure? --Hh219 09:02, 16 July 2007 (MDT)
Thinking about Repository pages intermingles with my thinking about Source pages. Here is my thinking so far:
The Data (birth date, picture, family story) - a fact, picture or story about a person
The Source (book, gravestone, 2nd Cousin, online transcription) - a physical thing or person, including WWW, where you found the Data
The Repository (WWW, email, CD, cemetery, 2nd Cousin's details) - the physical place in which the Source resides.
So what do you think about this scenario? I have my photocopy from a microfilm copy of a death record book, the microfilm being kept at IRAD (a depository). My guess would be that Data is the date and details, Source is the actual book, Type is microfilm copy, and Respository is the place where the microfilm lies (the repository). --Debbie V. 11:47, 22 July 2007 (MDT)


I think I agree, Debbie, although it seems like cemeteries want to be sources sometimes, places sometimes, and repositories sometimes, and it seems like rather much to require triple inputting of every cemetery on the planet! In your example, I'm inclined to think of the microfilm as identical to the original, so that this source might have several repositories -- IRAD, FHL, and wherever the county death record book itself is these days.

--Hh219 12:47, 22 July 2007 (MDT)

I think we are all in agreement that a Repository is a place, with a geographic or internet address. Just like the Sources, we may want to decide how local we want the Repositories to be. For example, within the NARA there are many "addresses" where Sources are "housed" both in Washington D.C., regional centers, and online. Do we just want a general NARA repository or do we want to have a Repository for different "subdivisions" of NARA?

Hh219, yes, the microfilm and actual record book would be the same Source, but different types or forms within that Source.--Debbie V. 15:35, 22 July 2007 (MDT)

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Discussion [7 August 2007]

Ok everyone. I went ahead and created this page (came up with ever so original title of "Source Committee" all on my own too :)) so we could have a place to "meet." Feel free to move it or re-title it to whatever is more appropriate. I figured we could use the project page for our more "finalized" ideas and use the Talk page for discussion. --Ronni 11:40, 12 July 2007 (MDT)

Thanks, Ronni. Jumping right in from Dallan's comments, we need to somehow be clear that the source title is not *necessarily* the same as the title of the book or magazine article or whatever. For instance, take an easy example, "The History of Ancient Windsor [CT]" by Henry R. Stiles. The source title, at least as we've been thinking, would be: "Stiles, Henry. History of Ancient Windsor." The book's title -- what you would put in the "title" box when entering it -- is either "The History of Ancient Windsor" or "History of Ancient Windsor" depending on the convention we choose.
I have liked the idea of doing source title this way, with author first, but having looked at it now, I wonder if maybe this is just too arcane and confusing for newbies and we should not try to maintain this distinction, just have source title and title box contents always be the same. What do people think?
I don't think the distinction will be too much of a stumbling block, especially if we do a "source manual" to help users when adding sources. Author first, especially with book types, is the way to go, in my opinion. I have created many book sources with author first and it has been a breeze to call up the source in the input field on Person and Family pages. Remember, the first few words of the title has to be correct for the title you are searching for, or it won't be called up in the list. It is much easier to simply type in that last name than trying to remember what are the first few words of the book. --Ronni 02:03, 14 July 2007 (MDT)
This example raises other questions, such as, what should we do with initial "the," "an," and "a"? (I say ditch 'em but it's hard to remember.) Should different editions be listed separately, and if so how? (Stiles 1859 is way different from Stiles 1892!) Should we treat a two-volume set, which Stiles is, as one source? Is there a professional librarian lurking who'd like to help?

--Hh219 13:21, 12 July 2007 (MDT)

There is a professional librarian "lurking," but we at Allen County Public Library are so engrossed in the imminent FGS meeting that I simply do not have the time right now to devote to this important subject. Again, I believe any decisions and the bulk of future discussion should be held off until Elizabeth Shown Miller's new edition of Evidence becomes available at the meeting, then give the matter more time and thoughtful consideration.

Mary--Kittydoc 08:44, 7 August 2007 (MDT)

If we go with author first, then title, I don't think "the," "an", etc will make much of a difference. Now, as to listing different editions on the same page, I'm voting for one page for all editions, even realizing the editions might be vastly different from each other. These differences, of course, should be noted on the source page. With all versions of a book, for example, on the same page, there won't the issue of how to make a source title for each edition. Also, one edition might be online while the other is not. Searching for the source in WeRelate, I would have to visit each page to see the various editions whereas I would personally like to click once and see everything on one page: the different editions, volumes, whether its online or not, etc. --Ronni 02:03, 14 July 2007 (MDT)
From an end-user perspective, what is it that they're most likely to a) use, and b) search by? Seems to me like Title more likely to come first. What does that woman author say-- the one who wrote about recommended citations for genealogy? (I've got her book somewhere... let me go look...) Jillaine 06:35, 14 July 2007 (MDT)
What I think of are those annoying similar sounding books that can only be distinguished by the author - i.e. The English Genealogical History of Henry Adams vs. The Somerset Ancestry of Henry Adams. Whoever is using/looking for the source probably knows the author and will want to use that to make sure they have the right record. For search purposes, having the author field filled in (which it isn't currently on most records), would greatly help search. But we still have the question of how the source should display in the search results (a question that will have to wait until the new search) and on person pages as a source when someone doesn't do something fancy. In both contexts, I think I vote for having the author visible. I think it would look better and be more intelligible as a source on person pages, and it would be easier to enter it in the source box when making one-off changes.--Amelia.Gerlicher 18:15, 14 July 2007 (MDT)


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Multiple forms of same source

Here's an sourcing issue that I have wondered about and may relate to our Source index - a source that is available in several "forms". For example, last week I requested a photocopy of a marriage record from IRAD (Illinois Regional Archives Depository) at SIU (Southern Illinois University). I'm not sure if they archive the actual record books (birth and death registers, probate papers, etc) or if they just have microfilmed copies. What they sent me was the print out from a microfilm copy of the page of the actual handwritten marriage register from 1828, St. Clair County, Illinois. My question is do I choose my source as the microfilm or the actual record book?

In some cases, a particular record, such as Book A of the death records of a particular county can be available in it's original form (at the court house), a microfilm (an archive or library), an online database, a transcribed book, or a website transcription.

When we create the Source pages, will we have a separate Source for each of these forms?

--Debbie V. 08:34, 14 July 2007 (MDT)


So we have to decide (1) how to list sources with different editions (i.e., one page vs different pages) and (2) how to list sources that are essentially the same, but appear as different TYPES. Debbie's example could also apply to a book that appears in hard copy or on CD. One page vs two pages?
If the template design can handle inputting different types on one page, that's something to consider. My personal opinion is to have one page with all the differing information on it, that is, different editions and types all included, but differentiated on the same page. I'm not sure how a template design would look though. It may be too confusing. --Ronni 11:52, 14 July 2007 (MDT)
I'm with Ronni. We should not cater to the confused idea that a CD or a microfilm is a "source" when it's a copy of an underlying book or vital record. The source is book A of the death records of St. Clair County, Illinois. The IRAD microfilm is the type. The FHL microfilm is another type. The original (if you went to the IRAD office) is another type. Buuuuuut....I would be inclined to say that a published transcription of the death records would be a different source (because of the many wonderful possibilities for error that don't exist in the process of microfilming). Here's where I would like to read what Ms. Mills would say?--Hh219 12:13, 14 July 2007 (MDT)
I'm mostly with you both. But, I think that as far as the transcription versus the original, that they need to be the same source/page. One of the purposes of the source page, at least as far as I see it, is information on the source, where it can be found, and what the strengths/weaknesses of each version are. Do we want to have 4 versions of every census? The federal microfilm, the ancestry.com images, the heritagequest images, and the genweb text translation? That seems silly. Much more useful is one page and where it can be found, and a note that the text transcription found at X is good/bad/badly formatted, etc. It's got to be up to the person adding the source to a page to note which version they used (like they will have to note page number, etc.) and we in turn can maintain a useful single page on each source, at least as far as we can manage.--Amelia.Gerlicher 18:15, 14 July 2007 (MDT)
With censuses, "United States, Illinois, St. Clair County, 1900" would be the source name for the actual census images, whether they be on federal microfilms seen at the library, or on ancestry or heritagequest. If anyone wants to cite John Doe's laborious 1955 transcription of the census, that should be a separate citation, something like "Doe, John. Transcription of 1900 Census, St. Clair County, Illinois" if that was his title. The beauty of this is that we're on the internet now, and we can and should link to various transcriptions from the main census page. Transcriptions are fundamentally different from actual images. I'm willing to bet Ms. Mills will take a stand on that.
Another way of looking at it is, a source citation says "This is what I looked at." If I looked at the original census, I want my sourcing to be able to say that, and not be lumped in with someone who looked only at the transcription.--Hh219 19:46, 14 July 2007 (MDT)
I'm going to complicate my own analysis and say that sources like this raise additional issues: Source:Ricker, Jacquelyn Ladd. The Ricker Compilation of Vital Records of Early Connecticut - that is, sources, like many CD compilations out there, that combine data from multiple sources in what purport to be close to the original format. Even though this is arguably just another type that should be combined with the Barbour VR page, I think it should have a separate page because the merits/usefulness/details for this particular source are worthy of a discussion separate from the Barbour collection. I think that distinction holds even if you were to tell me that the Ricker CD contains pdfs of the actual Barbour books, but I do not think I'd be in favor of another page if the cd contained *only* Barbour collection data. There's a fuzzy line there, because I would want to avoid creating a different source page for every version of the Windsor, CT Barbour collection vital records out there (for example) and we're going to need a rule about when that's appropriate, a rule that someone sourcing info from their database from a source they saw five years ago can use.
Here too I think the operative question is, what did you look at? If you went to the Connecticut State Library and saw the Barbour Collection cards themselves, that should be differently citable than going to your own library and reading the published book. Likewise I have no trouble with Ricker's compilation being cited as what it is, if that's what you looked at. Again, linkage is all. We can make links and compare without having to lump all our sourcings together.--Hh219 19:46, 14 July 2007 (MDT)
Hmmm, I think we have a disagreement that's pretty fundamental. And maybe I'm reading it wrong, but my vision of what we're doing has me agreeing with what hh219 just said but thinking that is has no bearing on what source pages should be. I view the question of what one should cite (where the "what I looked at" question is relevant) as almost entirely separate from the title and contents of a source page on WeRelate, which is independent of repository or edition and thus independent of the 'what I looked at' dilemma. What I cite (theoretically) includes things like the edition, volume, page, repository, url, etc. that may change depending on where and when I looked at a source. But the source itself, regardless of where I looked at it, is what gets its own page. What and how people should link to that page when sourcing info on a person/family page might influence how we title it, but I view the link to the source page as just one part of the source citation that should include other information.
Perhaps we should back up and talk about the goals of source pages. I have been operating under a theory that they are best for 1) collecting and identifying repositories, webpages, etc. where a source can be located; 2) providing a place to describe and discuss the content, usefulness and weaknesses of the source; and 3) linking the source to localities and surnames, to aid searching and research. When people see a source on a person/family page, the link should usually be just part of it, and clicking on it tells someone more about the source. But there on the person/family page is the citation information for that particular bit of info. This is why I'm not excited about separate pages for transcriptions vs. originals or articles within periodicals, although I'm willing to be convinced, because I think they clutter up the search and the project unnecessarily by distributing information to a number of pages that can be collected more usefully in one place.--Amelia.Gerlicher 22:28, 14 July 2007 (MDT)
Good points. In the genealogy program I use, there's the "source" which has its own little page, and there are "citation details" that you hopefully enter every time you use the source. In the easy case, the "source" would be a book title and author and publisher, and the "citation detail" would be the page number. In a hard case like censuses, some people choose to make each household a separate source (which drives me crazy and leaves very little to go in the citation detail), some make each county and each year a separate source (my preference, but it's kind of arbitrary), and some I gather make the entire US census for a given year the source (which makes the citation detail huge).
I think we're arguing about the same kind of judgment call along a spectrum here. We can kind of aggregate sources -- have a source page that include all versions of the Barbour collection, for instance -- and distinguish which version we looked at whenever we cite that general source. That keeps the source page more comprehensive, and I think Amelia is convincing me that in a wiki it may be better in general to lean toward aggregating versions of a source on a single page, more important than in one's own program. But there is a price for doing so: it does put more of a burden on the citation detail. If I get lazy and neglect to put any citation detail in (or if I did the research before I ever tried to think about this stuff!), and just cite "Barbour" in general, then the next reader won't be too well informed as to just what I looked at and what weight to give it. But it's a wiki, so the next person along can improve it if they know which version they saw on that particular person.
So I might even agree to include transcriptions and originals on the same "source" page, although I still want to see what Mills says. But wait -- what is the "source" exactly? Many of us can and do rest content with seeing what's in the Barbour books. If that's problematic, we can refer to the cards themselves at CSL or on microfilm. But the best possible evidence for the birth of my ancestor Ezra Mead in Greenwich CT is none of these, it's the wonderful entry on page 48 of the first volume of the Greenwich commonplace book: "Timothy mead had a son born october ye 9 day 1737 and he called his name Ezra made."
In a profound sense, THIS is the source. And therefore, in theory, it could be encompassed within a gigantic "source" including Barbour and other transcriptions of Connecticut vital records and all the original vital records of every Connecticut town.
Um, actually, at least how I do documentation of my sources, the source title for this would be "Greenwich commonplace book, volume I" and would include its author and physical location. It's completely different than Barbour in my mind! (Apologies if I'm returning to this conversation after some page has been turned, but felt I had to respond.) Jillaine 12:18, 20 July 2007 (MDT)
I think that would be going too far, if only because it would take a long time to convince most people of it or even explain why we were doing it that way. Right now Amelia has moved me toward greater source aggregation -- all versions of Barbour on a single source page, with citation details saying which one you consulted and which page of which book it was in or whatever -- but not all the way. I would prefer to keep Greenwich Vital Records a separate source from that.
I hope this discussion will help us figure out how & why we make these decisions. I'm pretty sure there are ramifications I'm not picking up on.--Hh219 07:02, 15 July 2007 (MDT)
I'm all for combining different editions and volumes on the same page, but in order to do this they need to have very similar titles throughout all the editions/volumes/versions, etc AND by the same author. Amelia gave the example of The Ricker CD and being in favor of it having a separate page. I agree with her, but for a different reason and that being simply because it has a different TITLE and a different AUTHOR than the Barbour Collection. How can we create a citation on our Person/Family pages when the source input field could have a completely different title for the source we're referencing? Imagine if Ricker did ONLY have the Barbour Collection on the CD, then the argument was for them to possibly be combined on the same page because they in essence are the same source, in which case, how would you cite Ricker if you are linking to a source title that has Barbour on it? --Ronni 01:56, 17 July 2007 (MDT)
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Really Broad/Internet/Periodical Sources
Thinking about this also raised (for me at least) a couple other side issues that can go somewhere else, but may still be under the committee's jurisdiction:
  • Are we going to develop a set of rules for citing sources? For example, say I have seen the Barbour Collection book entry for a given marriage record. That page currently cites something silly like "uncited internet date." Do I delete that? What if it says something second hand like so-and-so's Worldconnect file? What if it cites the Ricker collection discussed above? (the latter being the real situation) I'm one of those 'highest and best' folks who only cites the best source I've got, unless there's a conflict, but I know thoughts differ.
  • What are we doing for really broad sources? Some that come to mind are 1) periodicals like NEHGR (where the source cited should be an article, but I don't think we want pages for every article, despite the MySource result equivalent to that); 2) Ancestral File/WorldConnect/IGI/etc.; 3) the Barbour Collection, which currently has one page for all of Connecticut's VRs, which seems a little odd.

--Amelia.Gerlicher 19:03, 14 July 2007 (MDT)

Woo! Amelia, you're on a roll tonight! First question: sometimes it's not real clear which source is superior. I'm happy to just add improved sources without deleting the place I first found out about it.
But it's not just what I looked at or how you want to do your sources on people you upload. If this is a collaboration where we aspire to create the definitive page on Mr. X, don't we want to cite the best information available? I would prefer to see a minimum of the best possible cites, say a site to the parish register rather than having 18 cites to various articles and books because so much has been written about a particular guy. And I also would prefer not to see 10 utterly proper cites that say "parish register, viewed at X library on Y date", so the "what I looked at" question has some weaknesses here too. While I know there will be gray all over when you only have the articles and not the register, a theory on whether we're going for all possible or the best possible would be useful. But again not sure whether that's within the scope of what's going on here.--Amelia.Gerlicher 22:28, 14 July 2007 (MDT)
Second question: I would actually vote for citing individual NEHGR articles. In NEHGR, the unit of actual use is the article. To cite only NEHGR would be like citing "Donald Lines Jacobus" without being able to distinguish what it was being cited. Am I wacko here?
Worldconnect databases have titles and authors. PRF submissions have authors. Why can't they be cited that way? I'm not sure if there's a useful disambiguation for IGI, but my impression is that some submissions there are a lot more credible than others, e.g. the "extractions" are really transcriptions in my book.--Hh219 19:46, 14 July 2007 (MDT)
It seems to me that listing all WorldConnect and IGI submissions would be a fruitless exercise that would overwhelm the source search and make it unusable, while adding virtually nothing to the site. That does not mean that the databases can't be cited by author, which they should be.--Amelia.Gerlicher 22:28, 14 July 2007 (MDT)
Hmm, is it possible that we could think about this in terms of "usable units" for source pages? Obviously it's possible to have the source page be "New England Historical and Genealogical Register" and whenever you cite an article, you would specify the issue, date, article, and page number in each citation, not on the source page. My feeling is that that leaves very little work for the source page to do (what can we usefully say about NEHGR that would apply to 1860 and 2007 both?), and an awful lot of work for the individual citations to do. At the opposite extreme, it would surely be nuts to give each page of each issue of NEHGR a source page! To me, giving individual articles their own source pages (counting a multipart series as one article) is a natural middle-road choice, and they can be cited in the author-first style as well.
Looking at it this way, individual WorldConnect trees and Pedigree Resource File submissions (and freestanding family web sites for that matter) are analogous to NEHGR articles, just at a lower level of reliability. Plus they have authors and (in the case of WorldConnect) titles. Again, useful discussions of quality take place at that level. (I agree with Amelia there's not point in trying to do this with IGI or Ancestral File; if distinctions can be made other than "caveat lector," it may be easier to do so at the citation level rather than the source page level.)
I think a case could be made that the essentially unregulated and wildly variable contributions to WC and PRF don't merit such treatment. But I don't think "overwhelming the source search" is that argument, especially if the source search can be designed to exclude certain kinds of sources. (Dallan??) The argument would be that having individual source pages for particular WorldConnect trees is a waste of time because most of them aren't very good. The counter-argument would be that people in fact use them all the time and need to be educated, and if someone cites one as a source, then its own source page would be the ideal place to discuss why or why not that particular tree is reliable, whereas a source page that was for all of WorldConnect wouldn't. --Hh219 08:19, 15 July 2007 (MDT)
I think we could allow people to search sources by type of record, so they could omit certain types of records (say family trees).--Dallan 19:35, 19 July 2007 (MDT)
I can see your point on articles, and keeping the goals of the pages in mind, it does make sense to have pages on articles. I think (Dallan will have to tell us) that they would have to be created by hand rather than pulling them automatically from somewhere, however, which means we would only get pages on articles that someone has actually used, a good starting point. On WC, however, I still think it's a waste of resources (WeRelate's, ours, the end users) to include each file as a page. If I want to know what files in Worldconnect [etc.] have my surname, I'm much better served by using the search over there that will give logical results. I can't think of anything useful that a source page would add to that process. Even a space to comment that such and such data is wrong/sloppy is better done through a post-em. And the most likely workflow for an enduser would be to run a search for a surname, get a source page, and then have to go WorldConnect and search again to see if the right people are actually in the database.--Amelia.Gerlicher 16:25, 15 July 2007 (MDT)
Wow, what a great discussion! I started out thinking I had good opinions on several of the issues raised, but after reading the arguments on both sides I'm not so sure anymore. A couple of thoughts.
  • It's going to be difficult to keep people from creating separate sources for the same record set if they are published under different titles and authors. I don't think we can preclude this, although we could redirect or at least link these source pages together.
  • Another goal of the source index is eventually to help people know what sources are available when they get stuck -- kind of like a community-driven GenSmarts. In order to achieve this, the sources need to list the time periods, places, surnames (but listing the major surnames covered is important only for things like family histories, biographies, etc.), and record types covered. I think this means that having separate sources for each NEHGR article would be required. We might be able to get a list of the articles from NEHGS, but the coverage information would still have to be manually entered.--Dallan 19:35, 19 July 2007 (MDT)
OK, I'm convinced! Anybody else have a problem with WC, PRF, IGI, and AF each having a single source page, and those of us who cite them (blush) make any needed distinctions in the actual citation rather than on a source page? While we're at it, Amelia, what's your thinking on family trees that are on line but aren't part of the excellent search functions at familysearch.org or rootsweb? --Hh219 16:50, 15 July 2007 (MDT)
I'm a little more divided. Those trees lack the accessibility of a specialized search, but they still have both Google and the WeRelate web search to find specifics. They have no post-em feature, but a source page would be kind of an awkward place to complain about the few errors one might identify. For descendant studies, there might be some usefulness in a Source page, because it could be made findable and identifiable. But "Susie's Kin" that has four generations of random people isn't going to be useful. Perhaps we could strike a more limited ground where we discourage such pages unless the title of the website sufficiently identifies its contents, and the contents are all related to a particular surname, area or ancestor.--Amelia.Gerlicher 21:43, 16 July 2007 (MDT)
I'm in favor of the "mega-sites" like WC, AF, PRF having single Source pages. Regarding individual websites, there are currently around 100,000 websites containing family trees. Even though I've created source pages for many of them, I'm not sure that having the source pages is worthwhile. Having said this, I know a number of people have asked about creating source pages for their websites on WeRelate to make sure that Google can find them. Since Google crawls WeRelate, I've said ok to this point. Alternatively, these people could just as easily submit their URLs directly to google, but there may be some benefit to having an open-content list of genealogy websites that anyone can use. I could go either way on this -- denying them altogether, removing all of the automatically-generated source pages for websites that are currently in the source index but allowing people to manually add source pages for the websites that they want to, or keeping the automatically-generated source pages as well.--Dallan 19:35, 19 July 2007 (MDT)
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Evidence Explained - Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace [6 August 2007]

"That woman author" Jillaine referred to above is Elizabeth Shown Mills, and the new and greatly expanded edition of her book Evidence Explained - Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace is going to be released at the FGS Conference in Fort Wayne next month. I believe that this discussion on source citation format and page title format would be more valuable after we have had the opportunity to view her book. Mary--Kittydoc 08:17, 14 July 2007 (MDT)

I've been studying the first edition of "Evidence!". One issue is that it primarily focuses on how to cite individual sources (e.g., an individual birth record), although the bibliographic entry format that she gives is often pretty close to what we want I think. I've tried to follow the bibliographic entry format in the WeRelate talk:Source Committee/Examples page. I agree it will be good to see what the second edition has to say. I'll pick one up at FGS next month.--Dallan 19:35, 19 July 2007 (MDT)
Just FYI... rumor has it that the new version of Legacy, due out in October, will have source templates that follow the guidelines of "Evidence!". --Ronni 23:51, 5 August 2007 (MDT)
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Sources in uploaded GEDCOM's

Um, I don't see anyone talking about what to do about sources that are included in the uploaded GEDCOMs. How will those be reconciled with these sources you're describing here? Jillaine 19:38, 19 July 2007 (MDT)

The plan is to continue to create personal MySource pages for sources included in uploaded GEDCOM's, unless the title of the source in the GEDCOM starts with "Source:", in which case we'll assume that it refers to a community Source page. At some point I'll see if it's feasible to automatically match GEDCOM sources with community Sources. But it will require pretty well-described sources for the match to be reliable. I'm open to suggestions on how this could be better.--Dallan 21:37, 19 July 2007 (MDT)
Side comment: Oh. Damn. I suppose this was sort of obvious, but what this means to me -- with endless hours already sunk in a database of 35,000+ people and 3500+ sources, is that uploading my GEDCOM to WeRelate won't do that much good, because every single source and every single citation will have to be done over if it is to be findable. By hand. Maybe if I were finished with researching, or if I were just starting, I would feel differently, but this makes me feel like the wiki promise is very far out there indeed. Nobody's fault, it's just hard.

--Hh219 06:14, 22 July 2007 (MDT)

I may be missing something here, so please tell me if I am. I don't see much benefit in changing existing GEDCOM sources to point to the community sources. Let's suppose that I have a source in my GEDCOM that gets converted to a MySource on upload, and that the source is really the same as a community Source. If I take the time to change the MySource to a community Source, then I get the following advantages (any others?):
  • I can see usage notes that others may have added to the community Source,
  • I can see the correct author, title, and other publication and location information that people have added to the community Source, but then I probably had some of this information already in the MySource,
  • Others can click on the "What links here" link at the bottom of the community Source page and see that my Person page references the community Source,
Are these benefits worth the trouble for GEDCOM sources? I can see a lot more benefit of community Sources for new research. Rather than having to enter all of the information about the source so that others can determine how much to trust the source or look up the source for themselves, I just enter the title of the Source on my Person page and anyone can see the publication and location information on the Source page. Also, I can search community Sources and MySources at the same time to see what sources might be available to me when I get stuck in my research.
If people think that the benefits are worth it, we could try to automatically (or semi-automatically) match sources in uploaded GEDCOM's to community Sources sometime next year. I'm just trying to understand the benefits more clearly.--Dallan 20:45, 22 July 2007 (MDT)
I think it would be great if you could match some sources uploaded in gedcoms to the actual source pages, like you do with places. Realizing that I didn't like the treatment of sources is one of the reasons I've opted to add my stuff in by hand for the most part. (The other is realizing the duplicate problem in people and being too impatient to wait for the merge function.) In addition to the benefits you list, it will help usability by avoiding the creation of some duplicate MySource pages (which clutter search) and it should just look better on the page. I'd like to see the function identify and link to source pages from the title/author I upload, and keep the rest of my citation appended as detail on the person/family page. You'd have to be a little fuzzy on the logic, particularly for things like middle names and subtitles. One dream would be if you could pick out unique info like "FHL Film no." or a website and link accordingly. Two concerns: if you can't match the source, don't make a Source page (that would create a lot of junk, much in need of merging); and I'm more excited about merging people and overhauling search than this (which is where it sounds like it is on your list, so that's good).--Amelia.Gerlicher 20:55, 23 July 2007 (MDT)
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Examples

Dallan has some examples on the next page.

The examples are very good and I have just a few comments about them:

  1. The length of the some of the titles is going to cause troubles because of the number of characters we're limited to, isn't it? Especially when we start naming the "responsible agency" or URLs for websites in the titles.
  2. I personally prefer using a period (.) instead of a comma (,) between author's name and title. It quickly gives a visual clue where the author's name stops and the title begins.
  3. I'm not sure I like adding the "responsible agency" to the title or not. Would have to hear more pros and cons about that.
  4. It seems like a lot of rules. Is there going to be some kind of "wizard" to help us in creating the title for the source?

--Ronni 11:37, 19 July 2007 (MDT)

You beat me to the punch on this :-). The WeRelate talk:Source Committee/Examples page should be treated very much as a "work in progress". Please feel free to modify it as much as you want. If someone wanted to enter additional examples from "Evidence!" that might be helpful as well.
  • I think the rules for creating source page titles can be summed up as: the Source page title in the source author followed by the source title.
    • If there is no title, enter the title as a description of the item (e.g., "Journal" or "Minutes" or "Birth Registers").
      • When using a description of the item as the title, add years or other information necessary to distinguish the item from similar items after the record description (e.g., "Federal census, 1870, population schedule").
    • If there is no author, but there is a "responsible agency" for the records, enter the responsible agency as the author.
      • When using an agency as the author (e.g., "Bureau of the Census", or "North Carolina Division of Health Services--Vital Records Branch"), prepend the place covered by the agency (highest-level jurisdiction to lowest-level jurisdiction) to the front of the agency name (e.g., "United States, Bureau of the Census", or "United States, North Carolina, Division of Health Services--Vital Records Branch").
    • If there is no author or responsible agency, it is ok to omit the author. The Source page title is then just the source title.
    • If we want to have different titles for different editions, different transcriptions, or different translations of the source, we could add the edition/transcription/translator to the end of the Source page title to make it unique (e.g., "United States, Bureau of the Census, Federal census, 1870, population schedule. Ancestry.com").
  • The rules for filling in the publication information are more complicated. This is where I think having different templates for different types of records, where each template would have different fields especially for publication-related information, would be the most help.
  • We need to keep Source page titles to 150-200 characters. The MediaWiki software has problems with page titles longer than this.
I'm open to suggestions for improving the Source page title rules. The above is just a straw-man.
Regarding adding the name of the "responsible agency" to the Source page title, instead of just the place covered by the record set, I changed this in the examples because it makes the Source page titles follow the first part of the bibliographic entry format in "Evidence!". It also makes the Source page title format the same for an item authored by an agency and an un-authored record set with a responsible agency. For example, are the minutes of the Flint River Baptist Association an authored item, or an un-authored record set where the Flint River Baptist Association is the responsible agency? If we include the responsible agency as part of the Source page title, then it doesn't matter because the title is the same. But it does make the titles longer, and it introduces additional possibility for error when entering the title.--Dallan 19:35, 19 July 2007 (MDT)

Some comments on the examples:

1) it's too long;
2) it doesn't help identify the source in most cases (adding "county clerk" for birth registrations that only exist in one place, for example)
3) It's going to harm usability when looking at the dropdown when typing in a source on a person page or at a list of sources for a locality (compare "States, Texas, Archives Division, State Library. Confederate Pension Records, Index, tsl.state.tx.us" vs. "United States, Texas, Confederate Pension Records, Index")
4) It's too much like a respository and thus 5) it's going to be hard to figure out/format correctly.
Admittedly, that's all based on my opinion that a title should convey the minimum useful information to reasonably identify the source, and that additional information like publication/whereabouts goes on the page itself or in the citation where it's used. And based on the ideas discussed above that we're putting multi-volume/edition books on the same page. I recognize that the generaly rules we formulate for automating make some things ugly in the service of the greater good. But I do think that the purpose of these page titles is not to conform to proper citation formats. It should be to identify the record. For non-authored works, location is far more important than responsible agency.
I second Amelia's motions (though I'm conflicted on using responsible agency -- the nice idea is not to have to think about whether it's "authored" or not). Especially the one about censuses. Here's another reason if we need one. For whatever reason, a lot of folks will just cite the source that's given, and not put in any citation details when they cite it. If the standard source is "United States, 1850 Census" that's how they'll cite their info for Uncle John. If the standard source is instead "United States, Illinois, Putnam County, 1850 Census" then the rest of us will at least have an idea of where to start digging if we need to find the entry for Uncle John. (I know, you can take this argument to the extreme by making every individual household a separate source, but then surely the search function would collapse with a massive coronary.)
BTW, can anyone make a rational defense of treating census citations differently before and after 1840?

--Hh219 06:14, 22 July 2007 (MDT)


More specific example comments:

--Hh219 06:45, 22 July 2007 (MDT)

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Summary? [8 September 2007]

At some point (say September) would be helpful if someone could summarize the questions that have been raised so that after discussion we could "vote" on the issues.

I'll ask the people at ACPL to weigh in on these issues once the FGS conference is over.--Dallan 21:37, 19 July 2007 (MDT)

Alright, it's September. I'm going to take a crack at summarizing. It occurs to me reading through this that there are several types of things going on, so I'm going to go for a few subtopics. I'm going to sign up here and invite everyone else to edit this list below. If you want to explain why, then comment up here.

These are based partly on the table of samples, partly on the discussion above, and partly on the directive from Dallan that you should be able to start typing and get a list of sources. That means starting with something obvious (author or place - so I came up with some new things not otherwise discussed). And we want to make this as simple for people as possible. --Amelia.Gerlicher 13:36, 8 September 2007 (EDT)

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General Rules for Source Page Naming

(i.e. How to name a new source)

- If it has an author: Last, First. Title: Subtitle

- This includes: Books, Articles (title is article title), compilations that list a single person or entity as the compiler or editor, and webpages when entered.
- Two authors, use both names (Last, First & First Last). More than that: Last, First et al.

- No Author: general rule is either just Title or Place. Title

- Vital records: Country, State, Locality. Title of records
- The title is either the title of the book or microfilm (like the ones in the FHL library) or a common sense title ("Longview Cemetery", "Birth Certificates")
- If the title or record set includes only certain years, that goes in the title (i.e. 1880-1960)
- Census records: Census. Country, State, County, year
would this be "Country, State, County. Census, 1850"?--Dallan 17:10, 9 September 2007 (EDT)
- One page for each county in each year? (We could have one for each year or one for each year for each state or one for each county across all years, but the reality is that people cite to county and year)
- No differentiation for transcriptions vs. images (because 1) it would be very useful to have all transcriptions listed in one place and 2) most people don't distinguish where they found the record the first time)
- Unauthored book or other source: Title
- Might include city directories, sources like WorldConnect and IGI, and CD-ROM compilations of multiple state records.
- No "responsible agency" because it's long, confusing (for trying to correctly name a page), and much like a repository.


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Special cases

- Books with long subtitles: Cut off the subtitle at the most logical place within the first ~10 words. For example, something like "The Adams Family: The history of Henry Adams and his descendants in Massachusetts; his son John Adams and his descendants and the Adams family in Rhode Island" gets truncated to "The Adams Famiy: The history of Henry Adams and his descendants in Massachusetts". Perhaps the system could truncate at the first semicolon? (And can we get the system to 1) use title case and 2) omit the extra space before the colon for subtitles?)

Yes, I think we can get the system to set the title of a created page to be in title case and to omit the extra space before colon.--Dallan 17:10, 9 September 2007 (EDT)

- Articles. Each article in a genealogy periodical gets its own page. (Last, First. Title). The template obviously needs to include the periodical title, date, and page numbers. There should be an exception for all those articles in the early NEHGR that are just vital records transcriptions; they should be entered as vital records.

- Second editions of books. I'm going to think of this as if I'm looking at the book --

- Same title and author = same page. So a second printing (or later reprint) of a book doesn't generate a new page.
- New author "revised by" or "edited by" = new page using new author and new title. Our collective human power will have to link the two.

- Multi-volume books: Based on title and author as much as possible.

- Same page if they all have the same author.
- Same page if they all have no author and same title.
- Different pages if they have different authors.
- Same page if the titles are different only by year or part of alphabet. Title omits years/letters (i.e. the Great Migration books are all on one page instead of separating 1630 A-B from C-D)
- Different page if volumes cover different localities (i.e. the Barbour Collection are all different books)

- Vital records: The source page is for a set of vital records for some particular locality that exists as a set in an accessible form: A locality's file of death records, a book of vital records published for a town, a cemetery. All versions of that set are on the same page:

- the original book,
- images of that book on Ancestry or Google Books, etc.
- a transcription of those records on a webpage,
- the filming of those records for the FHL,
- the transcription of those records in the IGI.

The reason for this is to collect information about where to find a source (the vital records for X place) in one spot, which helps further research and allows comments about the virtues of various transcriptions. And it makes it easiest to enter the source for people entering sources (or for the system trying to match them)

This rule does permit different pages for different original "sets". For example, the Barbour collection book for a particular town is a different source than the original records for that town, because Barbour drew his info from a variety of different places. A CD that compiles all known information about X town gets its own page, even if there are pages for each of the record set it used. But it two sources got all of their information from the same place, they should be on the same page.

- Compilations of user-submitted records (Ancestral File, IGI, GenCircles, WorldConnect, etc.): one page for each. The detail to the source should be more specific where applicable, but there should not be a separate page for each batch/file.

- Personal websites: Author. Title or just Title. But wherever we put this list, we add a disclaimer "Please do not create source pages for websites with generic titles ("Kim's Kin" "Ancestors of John Doe"). If the title does not convey anything about the content (or if there is no general title), consider using a MySource page instead."

We have a lot of websites (around 50,000) currently in the source wiki that don't follow this format, but I'm not against removing them and letting people enter website sources with a proper title when they need to.--Dallan 17:10, 9 September 2007 (EDT)

- Gedcoms. Often cited by people, but should not get their own pages. Same with "Research of Jane Doe" for when somebody [e]mails group sheets, etc.

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Templates

There's really not much discussion of this, but a few thoughts:

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Issues related to search [5 September 2007]

The source "form" includes fields for surnames and locations, but what about a keywords field? That could be used to search for sources related to nationalities or ethnic groups or other general topics.

--Moultriecreek 16:28, 3 September 2007 (EDT)

There is currently a keywords field for searching sources. I'll make sure that we don't remove it.--Dallan 10:00, 5 September 2007 (EDT)

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What's an author? [18 September 2007]

Is a compiler or transcriber an author?

Is an editor?

Is an agency that compiles records an author? What if it's "Town Clerk?

Is the person who published a set of vital records an author? Or would we rather have vital records named using the place? (The advantage of the former is specific identification, the advantage of the latter is easier finding in categories and easier combination of subsequent reprints (where the original extractor goes missing)

I could vote either yes, yes, no, no, or just no entirely for consistency, but I don't feel strongly either way. I'm a little worried about agency/association names getting out of control or unhelpfully generic. And I like the idea of having vital records titles identify the place--Amelia.Gerlicher 14:04, 15 September 2007 (EDT)

My vote would also be yes, yes, no, no, for the same reasons as Amelia.--Dallan 11:36, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

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Prioritize the basic sources? [20 September 2007]

Pardon my interloping on a conversation that's been going on for a while now (I'll do my best to catch up), but I was frustrated with the current state of the Sources, and was about to start a thread on the Watercooler, when I noticed this Committee page. What I'd like to suggest is that whatever plans are afoot for getting the Source namespace organized, it may be a good idea to focus initial efforts on the most-used basic sources, chiefly the US/UK/Canada decennial censuses, and a few other workhorses like the SSDI. I say this from the pragmatic surmise that a small number of sources will account for a large number of source citations, and the observation that the population of our WeRelate user community is swelling. I read above that Dallan has a plan in mind for an automated conversion of the existing Source pages to a new format once that format is agreed upon, but I think that the basic sources require some manual intervention before anything automatic could have a good result. For example, the existing source pages related to the US Census are a haphazard crop, and don't seem to follow any organized convention. Some target particular years. Others target particular websites. Still others target particular counties or regions of various scale. A newbie coming to this site and wanting to cite a particular census would be hard-pressed to find what he needs by searching the Source namespace as it stands.

I was tempted to follow the Wikipedia motto to "be bold", and go ahead and create the Source pages that I thought ought to be there, but on discovering this conversation, I see that what I had in mind for the census was different than what others here are suggesting. I had been thinking of one Source page per country/year, e.g., "US Census 1880", "UK Census 1841", etc. This has the advantage of requiring only about two dozen Source pages to be created to represent the US, UK, and Canada censuses. However, it sounds like the going suggestion here is to have a Source page per county/year, e.g., "Census, US, Wisconsin, Lincoln County, 1880". That requires several orders of magnitude more Source pages (i.e., thousands vs. a couple dozen), and I wonder to what advantage. I think it was hh219 above who said he (she?) didn't see the point in one census page for an entire country/year, whereas s/he would like to see the county-specific census page to provide info on where that census can be found. My thinking on this was just the opposite. I imagined a very useful "US Census 1880" page. For example, an explanation of the census form, and the various annotations that can go in each column. That information is specific to the year, but common across the nation. Conversely, while I understand that local portions of the census may be available in particular local repositories, entire national censuses are widely available from a number of repositories (both physical and online). I'm thinking that a county-specific census page would largely duplicate common information, and would end up saying things like "the entire 1880 census is available in these places ... and in addition, the Lincoln County portion of the census may be viewed at the Merrill Branch of the Lincoln County Library."

I share hh219's eagerness for local knowledge -- what are the repositories of interest in Lincoln County? what are the useful pieces of information unique to history/genealogy in Lincoln County? I guess my thinking is that the Place pages are a good place to put all that, in the scheme of the overall wiki. Place:Lincoln,_Wisconsin,_United_States could tell you where in Lincoln County to find local portions of the census, as well as whether some sections of it are faded, or that the enumerator who did the town of Tomahawk had some particular quirk in how he annotated those census sheets. It could tell you where to find the microfilms in the Merrill Library, and that the pastor of the Brandon Lutheran Church took compulsively copious notes on the congregant population from 1889-1913 which can be found in a university library in the next county. I urge everyone to adopt a county Place page. :-) (And if you've any interest in Scotland, please see here!)--TomChatt 03:39, 19 September 2007 (EDT)

Tom, I though you almost had me almost convinced...and then I thought about it more and decided that you do have me convinced. I do think that there are significant resources out there that are not the "full 1880 census," and, particularly among the free resources, most are just one county or state, and we need a place to collect those. But we could do it on the county page, which would have the advantage of being just one page for the county instead of 10 to draw users and editors. One thing that may help reduce the downside (only having a link to the 1900 census in the source cite, which won't be very specific to that citation) is to do an example or part of the template that adds a link to the county page to the source cite. Otherwise, if the person types in a place in an event field, it's likely to link to the town instead of the county where most of the records are likely to be.--Amelia.Gerlicher 11:07, 19 September 2007 (EDT)
I'm a big proponent of using Place pages to capture local information. What really turned me on to their potential was discovering what GENUKI has done with their place pages for the UK. I find them invaluable and refer to them again and again, but I can't add or make corrections to them directly as I could on a wiki like here. To get an inspiration of what WeRelate's Place pages could evolve into, take a look at this page for Aberdeenshire. Now imagine the WeRelate Place page for your favorite county containing that sort of info. Let's make it so! --TomChatt 02:36, 20 September 2007 (EDT)


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Regarding Census Sources - need for both general and local [2 June 2008]

I think we need both the general (ex. 1910 US Census) pages as well as the local state/county/year (ex. Illinois, Franklin, 1910) pages. We need the county pages because some county census records have been transcribed and annotated like this one for Franklin, 1910. This version only covers a township in Franklin County, but this is the kind of local information I think we are looking for.

Once the Source pages are standardized and duplicates combined, we can truly realize the benefit of the "What Links Here" function at the bottom of the pages. This is evident when you do this now (try it!) on a Place page. The only problem is that the results are not ordered by type, but by when they were created. This needs a dropdown box so that we can see all the Person, Source, Place, Family, etc pages. If you haven't been using the "What Links Here" you will be pleasantly suprised.

--Debbie V. 12:10, 19 September 2007 (EDT)

I can certainly see both points of view on this. But I'm trying to think of what makes the most sense from a "wiki taxonomy" point of view (which has both information science and technical/programming aspects to it) as well as a pragmatic manageability point of view (how do we get it done?). I agree with the spirit of "let's do it both ways", but I don't think we can do it both ways both in the Source namespace, otherwise one would have to make a choice each time you added a source whether to select "US Census 1880" or "Census, US, Wisconsin, Lincoln, 1880" for the "source" field on the page. However, I think there is a good wiki solution to accommodate both, either way we decide to organize the census Source pages. We have:

I think that either plan could be made to answer most if not all of what we want. The difference I worry about is that Plan A can be implemented by creating about two dozen Source pages (one for each census year for US, UK, and Canada). One or a few of us could do a high quality job of that in a reasonably short time. Plan B requires many thousands of pages to be created (one for each county per year). If we wanted it to be accurate and complete, it would require a bit of automation to do, and it would require having the appropriate information as input, namely a good list of states/counties per census year. (We couldn't just use the existing Place database because it wouldn't have the time component: states and counties evolved over time, so the states and counties in the 1830 census aren't the same as those in the 1930 census.) Perhaps that's not as hard as I think, Dallan would have to answer that. (It's certainly doable, as, e.g., ancestry.com has done it, though whether via an automated process or with human editorial hard work, I don't know.)

Things that are a wash with either plan:

I know that concern has been expressed about making sure that source citations are in the proper format. I believe that if the information is structured sufficiently, the proper format could be generated with either Plan A or Plan B. Plan A, however, would probably entail adding a "Place" field to the "add source" template on Person and Family pages. (Or better still, somebody had suggested a "wizard". That would be a great way to help people consistently enter appropriate info. I'd say that adding a census cite looks like a top candidate for a wizard!) With the right structure, the wiki could automatically put the right information pieces in the proper format when presenting a Person/Family webpage, or when exporting to GEDCOM.

Another consideration is the ease of entry when adding a source. When we had a similar discussion amongst WeRelaters active in Scotland about the best way to name the Source pages for the parish registers (one of the fundamentals of Scottish genealogy), some expressed concern about making it easy to enter, taking best advantage of the drop-down menu completion feature. If we had only to enter "Census, US, 1880" in the source field, and then the county name in a separate "place" field, each of which had appropriate auto-completion, that would make it easier on the fingers. ---TomChatt 02:33, 20 September 2007 (EDT)

Good morning everyone,

I have not formed any opinion on how census sources should be formatted, but I have some observations.

I'm somewhat of a heretic in this regard, but I don't think that it really matters whether the census image comes from Ancestry, HeritageQuest, FamilySearch, etc. As long as you have the state, county, and page number, you can find the image. Note that I'm talking about images. For something like Rootsweb (thinking about the numerous transcriptions on there), the source is the Rootsweb site, not the census. Of course if it is an actual image, then the census is what needs to be cited. --Ajcrow 18:51, 25 January 2008 (EST)
Each person has their own method. I do put where I accessed the image; but I can add this at the citation level. The source format needs to be flexible to allow for different methods by users. --Beth 08:48, 26 January 2008 (EST)
Remember that the "source format" we're talking about is primarily the source title -- the title for the page that will have information about that source. I think it would be unnecessary, excessively technical, and destroy much of the wiki benefit to have separate source pages for Ancestry, HQ, etc. census pages. Once we determine a level for which we have census pages, each page (just like all other sources) can easily list the available repositories, and anyone can comment on the differences between them there. If someone wants to add that information to the citation detail, they can, but I think even that's unnecessary, since there's very rarely going to be a difference.--Amelia.Gerlicher 21:05, 26 January 2008 (EST)
I'm confused as to what impact you're concerned about here.--Amelia.Gerlicher 21:05, 26 January 2008 (EST)
It may not, but I envision having the census data sourced at the county level and at some point having every person that has a source citation for that census year and county being automatically linked to that source page. That could be most helpful in a study of migration patterns of families. I assumed that on the source page one would site the National Archives microfilm number and roll number or numbers. Then one could specify the roll number in their citation. --Beth 09:23, 27 January 2008 (EST)

--Beth 07:44, 25 January 2008 (EST)

I have created a sample census source for you to examine and agree or not. Source:United States. Texas. Comanche. 1900 U.S. census, population schedule. This is the citation: United States. Texas. Comanche. 1900 U.S. census, population schedule, page 249 B (stamped), fair quality, 18 June 1900, De Leon, NARA microfilm publication T623, roll 1623, SD 4, ED 34, dwelling #121, family #123, Alfred C. Coker; digital image. Ancestry.com. (www.ancestry.com) --Beth 20:32, 28 January 2008 (EST)


Can we agree on consensus that

  1. The format for a general census page is United States. 1XX0 Census Population Schedule
  2. The format for a county census page for those that wish to have them is United States, State, County. 1XX0 Census Population Schedule
  3. Both types of pages are independent of the medium or location of a transcription, with Ancestry, HQ, FamilySearch, etc. listed as repositories.
  4. Citation using either adds sufficient detail to locate record (i.e. county, locality, page, ED, etc.). (What that detail level is is TBD and unnecessary to this specification.)

I would suggest that we also set up categories for each census year that are used to li