If you feel the pages in a book, periodical, or unpublished document are of value to your genealogy, make a copy of them. Be sure to copy the title page of the book and the back of the title page for the publication date. If you found some information on a microfilm, write down where the microfilm is located and the film number. If it is a document in a courthouse write down all pertinent information about its location, for example:

Deed of Sale from John Allen and wife to Henry Woodfill, 5 April 1823 (filed 7 April 1823), Jefferson County, Indiana, Deed Book A, page 105. County Recorder's Office, Madison, Indiana.

It is best to put the citation on the front side of the page and not so close to the margin as it may be cut off during a second photocopying or three-hole punching. If the page is dark and it will not destroy the integrity of the document, you might add a stick-on label on which to write the citation. You may use a colored stick-on dot or arrow to point out relevant lines. We do not recommend going over text with a high-lighter other than yellow, as it may obscure the text during photocopying. However, if the highlighter is acidic, it may eat through the page over time.

Most genealogy software programs allow you to keep good citations for the information you have found and also add notes.  It is often said that a family group sheet without notes and source citations is not worth the paper it’s printed on.

If someone told you the information write down the circumstances; who was this person, where did they get the information, what was the date? For example:

My great-grandfather (William Joseph Hewitt, born 1833), had a disagreement with his family and left for America as a stow-away on a ship. This was told to me by his grand-daughter, Isla D. Stewart, on 8 August 1963, as told to her by her mother.

Books

Elizabeth Shown Mills' book Evidence!: Citation and Analysis for the Family Historian (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1997) is a definitive book on citing sources. She provides hundreds of precise examples that many genealogists follow. These standards are specifically geared for genealogical references. If you are planning to publish your research, we recommend that you follow the examples given in Ms. Mills' book so that anyone reading your book will be able to easily locate any published or unpublished material that you cite. You may, however, prefer to use other recognized style manuals for citing your work, such as, The Chicago Manual of Style or the Modern Language Association Style Guide. At any rate, choose a style manual and use it consistently.

We supply our clients with formal reports, at their request, following the format and standards prescribed by Ms. Mills in her book.  We can also supply more informal reports that do not adhere to such a rigorous format. These informal reports take less time for us to produce even though the standard of research is the same.  Many of our clients ask a research questions and wish us to respond quickly by email so they can carry on with their research. These types of reports cost our clients less money and we are happy to offer the less formal report as an option.

Citations for books generally follow this format: the author's name (last name first, or the name of the editor or compiler); the title of the book in italics, any edition number; the place of publication, the publisher, the date of publication; and the page number on which the information was found.

Here is an example of a citation for a book that might have been used in compiling a genealogy. If you are quoting specific pages, then list the pages at the end of the citation:

Fields, Bettye-Lou, compiler and editor. Grayson County: A History in Words and Pictures. Independence, VA: Grayson County Historical Society, 1976, 87-88.

Periodicals

Citations for information found in periodicals follow this format: author of the article, last name first; title of the article in quotes followed by the title of the periodical from which the article came, in italics; volume, issue number, date; and pages from which the citation came.

Here is an example for citing the information that was found in a periodical:

Larson, Janna Bennington. "Identifying Abigail, the Wife of Daniel Cressey of New Hampshire," The American Genealogist 77 (July 2002): 180-81.

To the general format, you are encouraged to add other helpful information, for example:

• The name of the repository and the item's call number.
• Comments on the legibility, organization, or condition of the document.

Examples for citing Bible records, CD-ROMs, cemetery markers, census records, diaries, email messages, interviews, legal cases, manuscripts, probate files, video, just to name a few, can be found in Elizabeth Shown Mills' book.

Help Me! I forgot to take a full citation of a book the last time I was at the library. Can you help me find out what it should be?

Help Me!  What is the proper way to cite a census record? A Bible record? An entry from a diary?

Help Me!  My great-aunt was the family historian. She left me a notebook with the family history going back to the Mayflower but there are no sources for this information. Can you take this genealogy and find the sources? 

To ask these or similar questions, click on Help Me!, fill out the form that comes up, and submit your questions.

 

Transcribing, Abstracting, and Translating

Janna Larson and Daniela Moneta have extensive experience in transcribing and abstracting old documents and will be glad to provide this service for you. We have experience in working with records in foreign languages, notably Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Norwegian and Spanish, but we may need to consult experts to translate complex documents.

Help Me! I think I have the baptismal record of my ancestor. Can you transcribe it and translate it for me?

Help Me! I have a letter from my French great-grandmother to her grand-daughter, my mother. I can’t read it. Could you translate it for me?

To ask these or similar questions, click on Help Me!, fill out the form that comes up, and submit your questions.