Notations & Standards

[British Kiwi]

Hi

I have been researching my tree for a while and have most of it in Ancestry and Family Historian. I am going through trying to standardise how I make notes of sources and I have a lot!! Can anyone point me in the direction of where there are some standards for genealogy? Not sure if I am making sense.

Thanks
Melanie

[bibliotaphist]

This is something I've been looking for, too. None of the academic referencing/citation guides give examples for BMD or censuses (which you'd think would come up from time to time in academic historical research) and I've not spotted anything on any fh websites.

Will keep looking.

Paul

[British Kiwi]

I'm sure I covered general notations when the studied A level history but I think I got rid of my notes when I emigrated.    Maybe I need to check general history rather than genealogy

[KGarrad]

I'm not sure what you mean by "standard notations"?

Each person does their own tree, in their own style, and the usual way of denoting sources is whatever their particular software (if they use software) uses?

[British Kiwi]

My software allows you to name every source as you like and I am trying to be consistent.  For example every cenesus I have saved I use the file name "[reference]-Census [year]-[SURNAME] [initials]. I don't want to reinvent the wheel. I'm reading Tracking Down Your Ancestors by Dr Harry Adler and I thought he had mentioned something but cant find it. He did say however that you need to transcribe documents and photos exactly as written and if you add anything enclose in square brackets. These are helpful things to ensure others can understand what I have done.

[KGarrad]

I use the references as used by the owners of the document?!

For example, for a (UK) census:
Class (HO107, or RG09-RG14) which denotes the year
Piece No.
Folio No.
Page No.

For a Birth, Marriage or Death certificate:
Year
Quarter
Registration District
Volume
Page No.

For Parish Registers:
Town/City
Name of church
Date of event
(and any reference numbers provided, if any)


Dr Adler was correct re transcriptions, though.
The image is copyright; the data contained in the image is not.

So a transcription, being all your own work, is your copyright!

[Guy Etchells]

There are thousands of websites dedicated to citing sources, such as
http://www.progenealogists.com/citations.htm

Try typing "citing sources in genealogy" (without the quotation marks) into Google for more examples.

However remember just because a website cites sources for the information it does not follow that the deductions made are any more accurate than a website that does not cite sources.
Cheers
Guy

[Jocie]

I agree with KGarrad it will vary according to the limitations of your software but as long as you are clear and consistent you won't go far wrong. If I find something I'm unsure about referencing I try to imagine I'm reading it as a stranger and check whether or not the reference would lead me to the correct source.
There is nothing more frustrating than finding useful information that is unsourced so you cannot check the writer's interpretation or it's reliability.  Even with reliable sources I do like to 'see for myself' if it's at all possible as you sometimes come across other useful information. 
Jo

[bibliotaphist]

There are thousands of websites dedicated to citing sources, such as
http://www.progenealogists.com/citations.htm

Thanks Guy, that's a useful website.