Why Sources and Citations are Important in Your Family History Research

(Thanks to StLGS treasurer, Viki Fagyal, for writing this week's blog.)

Sometimes it is good to get back to the basics of Genealogy 101. I remember my first genealogy teacher saying over and over, “You have to document where you found it.” That piece of advice has stuck with me for more than forty years. Good source citation not only helps you remember where you found a piece of information, it is helps someone who picks up your work five, ten, or thirty years from now determine where that information came from. A good citation also helps to ascertain if the source you used was strong enough evidence to prove each name, date, or place. And if you have two different pieces of evidence for the same event, evaluating the source can help determine which one to trust.

What information is necessary in a source citation? At a minimum, you need to document who, what, when, and where. This means capturing the author, title, publisher, date and place of publication, website title, URL, etc. Consult books such as Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace or Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian, both by Elizabeth Shown Mills, or go to the StLGS website and look at the bar of tabs across the top. Hover your mouse pointer over Resources, then move the pointer down to On This Site, and click on Citations: A Guide. There you will find Citations: A Guide to Creating Proper Source Citations that you can use for assistance with creating your own source citations. (Or go directly to the guide here.)

Source citation does not have to be difficult. You have put so much effort into your research, you should show others that you take it seriously by documenting your work.

Sources vs. Citations

The source is where you found the information: the book, census, Bible page, newspaper, military record, or pension, for example. The citation tells the reader exactly how to find that record again. For example, “The first identified home, St. Louis Protestant Orphan Asylum, formed by the St. Louis Association of Ladies for the Relief of Orphans, included 'women representing the city’s four large Protestant churches—one Methodist, one Episcopal, two Presbyterian.'"

This is a direct quote from the book, Researching Orphans and Orphanage Care in St. Louis. Placement for the citation is either as a footnote at the bottom of the page or at the end of the chapter as an endnote. Some authors choose to place all sources at the end of a book delineated by chapters. This is an individual choice. So the source of this quote is the book, and the complete citation would be, “Viki Fagyal, Researching Orphans and Orphanage Care in St. Louis, (St. Louis: St. Louis Genealogical Society, 2018), p. 3.” This citation includes the author, title, publication location, publisher, year of publication, and page. Anyone researching this topic in the future can go directly to the same source.

Since we can't include footnotes in this blog, see the image below for how this first footnote should look on an actual page. The superscripted footnote number is highlighted to make it easier to see.

Sometimes the same information conflicts from one source to another. Evaluating the source helps determine which source is most believable. For example, three sources provided different birthdates for Vernon Lee Mason.

• His date of birth appears as January 1879 in the 1900 census enumeration.
• It shows as 14 January 1878 on his World War I Draft Registration.
• It's given as 29 January 1880 on his death certificate. 

Even though Vernon gave the information for the World War I Draft Registration, it is incorrect. His older brother was born in October 1877 and that date is well-documented, so there is no way that Vernon could have been born just three months later. The information on his death certificate was given by his fifteen-year-old adopted son who was not alive when Vernon was born so may not have known his birthdate. The information on the 1900 census was probably given by a family member living in the home at the time. Additionally, his older sisters all agreed he was born in 1879. Corroborating information from available sources with the genealogical information known to you as a researcher helps you determine what information is most likely correct.

If you have multiple sources for one piece of information, you can include them in a single source citation by using the word "Also" between each full source citation. See the example in footnote number 2 below, and notice how all three of the sources for Vernon's birth are cited in one footnote with each one separated by "Also."

Writing good source citations is not difficult but it is necessary to verify the accuracy of your work. You can develop a citation and then copy it as a template or use the citation guide on our website. Just be sure to document each piece of information you find for your family. If you have to ask, “Where did I find that?” or “How do I know this is true?” you'll know you need a source citation for that bit of information.