Genealogy and the Modern Internet

Session Three: creating and using citations to enhance the value of your research discoveries

The value of any family history is immeasurably enhanced by comprehensive, accurate and pertinent citing of documentary sources for the "facts" that one has uncovered about the members of her or his family lines. The creation of such citations can be a laborious task. But the very labor that you undertake to complete this task is the measure of the true value that can be seen in your total effort.

There are some general guidelines in citation creation of which the student should be made aware. http://www.citationmachine.net/ is one online source meant to assist in this creation. However, at a bare minimum, some would argue that each citation should include, where appropriate:

the title of the source
the author(s), editor(s), or compiler(s)
the publisher including date and place of publication
the page number
the film number
the series title
the record group name and number
the URL for any online source
the date found
and the repository where the source was located.

A copyrighted PDF entitled Genealogy Source Citations Quick Reference can be read by downloading this PDF by clicking here. This short form was located online at http://hidefgen.com

The construction and use of a "cheat sheet" can greatly reduce the time required to create appropriate citations. Such a "cheat sheet" has been a handy tool used by more than one of the members of the LSCGG. You may download, revise, edit or add to this "cheat sheet" to lessen the labor of your own citation creation. Just click here.

Part of the time during this session will be devoted to having students create citations for their own family tree database.

Session Four will be designed to assist the student in understanding and using report formats that can be created and shared with other family members.

Students are asked to fill-out and return a Session Three "question sheet." A PDF copy is available here.