Okay, moment of truth. How many of you like to do source citation? you, you,
me, raise your hand. Okay, you know what? There are a lot of people who dislike doing
source citation in genealogy research, and today we're going to give you some strategies if you
are part of that crowd. Howdy, I'm Devon Noel Lee with Family History Fanatics, and I want to help
you be a better genealogist. So be sure that you check the links in the description for show notes
because you will have access to a free guide that you don't want to miss. As well as a lot of other
videos and resources to help you become that better genealogist. Whenever I discuss religion,
politics, history, science, and any topic with my children who are homeschooled,
I often tell the ask them what source are you basing that off of? and we can't have a discussion
until we define our terms and know what articles we're referencing. When we're talking about
something, I can't tell you the number of fights that we've had where either I've been wrong,
or they've been wrong because we didn't know what sources we were using. But in genealogy,
we have to have sources to back up our data; otherwise, we are sharing and propagating fiction.
As many of you know, I'm a huge fan of the Poldark series, the books, and the series over on BBC.
Over on WikiTree, they actually have Winston Graham's family tree but is this
actually accurate for Ross Poldark and Demelsta. No, it always made up out of Winston Graham's
mind. So if we are going to be good genealogists, we need to be basing our family tree information
on facts. But if you're someone who doesn't really like to do source citations, then you
can admit it in the comments. I have some hope for you I'm going to tell you a couple of the benefits
for doing genealogy research citations, and then we're going to tell you some tricks
to make it not so painful. One of the reasons why you want to do genealogy source citations
is because it helps you know where to stop whenever I am using my research plan. And
there is a free copy of my research plan in the show notes. I also can know where I stopped,
no source found, or no source provided meaning. I need to go get that source. So that's one of
the reasons why you keep track of your source citations, and then when records conflict,
you can go back to the sources that had the information and then evaluate it and try to
figure out who's right and who's almost right or completely wrong. And the third thing for those
of you who know how much I love writing family stories. I use my sources as my outline. A lot
of people can't get started writing their family's histories because they don't know where to start.
My chronologically organized source citations help me out every single time. Now the folks over
at trace have this to say about source citation. "Citations tell the reader the specific details of
where a piece of information was found down to the page line or paragraph. Well-crafted citations are
absolutely crucial. If you, your work, is to be looked upon as valid or having integrity."
okay, I really want to have valid work and have it full of integrity but for citations
are overwhelming. Why? Well, if any of you have read Andy's book How to Fail English with Style,
you know that he doesn't like to do unnecessary work. And when it comes to writing research
papers for English class, there was a lot of unnecessary work. Now that doesn't mean he doesn't
use source citations. In fact, in his career as a engineer, he has cited a lot of things, but
the motto of engineers is very similar to the motto of the navy 'keep it simple.' stupid.
So when I like to look back to my journey of citing sources, I remember starting with the MLA
handbook. And I was writing research papers in the 90s and even the 80s, and it was a 146-page book.
Not too bad. It covered formatting the book as well as source citations. But then you get the
book evidence explained in its multiple inches thick. I can understand why most
beginning genealogists and intermediate ones too are like 'uh no. No. No. That is too complicated
let's keep it simple.' Stupid. Remember, I alluded to there's a little bit of hope. Well, part of the
hope is you just have to get over yourself, and you just have to write some sources. If you don't
do it now when you need it later to argue with the relative about who's right and who's wrong,
you're not going to have it at your fingertips. But there is something you can do. So let me tell
you about my blog post. There's going to be a lot of links about these tips, as well as some basic
elements of a good genealogy citation over in the show notes. I want to get straight to my
hacks for those of you who don't like citations. Tip 1 don't worry about following this rules
of citation. Capture as much information as you can. Who, what, when, where, why, and how.
It's almost like writing a research report, but you're going to tell yourself all of those details
to help you know how to get back to the source again. Write as much of that detail down. Now, if
you're doing paper copies, you're going to write it on the front or the back of your photocopies,
not an original record. If you're doing online information, you're going to use your software
or your research plan that again free template is in the show notes. And you're going to write down
as much of that citation as you can. Trick 1, use a source citation template. Now there's one online
for you in the show notes. You can get my template and get started. It does not have every possible
source citation, but it has enough to get you started. Be sure to save it to your google drive,
or you can download it as an excel file and use it on your computer. What you need to know about
a source citation template is the format is a little interesting. You look at your source. I
know I love city directories, particularly over on MyHeritage. If you haven't checked them out,
this is well worth the subscription for you as subscribers, but a template will look very similar
to this. A lot of gibberish, but notice there's brackets around a number of details that you need
to insert information. So let me quickly show you how it's built. I add the title of the book. I add
the location the publisher, the date, the database name, as well as the website I found it. On
the date, the person for whom I am looking at, and the page number bada bing bada boom. I have
a source citation not too bad. So source templates, you can start with the basics
and expand it as you have a variety of different sources that you want to use again and again.
You copy that put it into your handwritten notes, or use it into an online research plan,
and you're good to go. Now, this trick came from Drew Smith from the Genealogy Guides, and he says
copy this citation. And you're thinking, okay, where am I going to copy the citation. Well, there
are some websites like FamilySearch that create a source citation for you. It's awesome. Now that
also means you should probably link your sources to the family trees that goes without saying
but just highlight and copy and then go stick it on your researcher report, your research plan,
your family history stories, and so on and so forth. I love that trip/trick. Thanks,
Drew. Now another trick comes from another colleague Thomas McKinty from Genealogy
Bargains. And if you want links to their content, be sure to check out the show notes.
So one of the things that he likes to do when he is using an online source like this he will save
the image to his computer. And in his image, it'll give him a little bit of the citation. The who
the database, the website, and the date that he accessed it. So that's the date, 2021,
March 15th. And so later, if he needs to go make a more complete citation, he has
information attached to his image. Now I haven't done this very much, but it's a great trick,
and I hope it works for you. Another trick I like is using Citation Generators.
Now, if only the citation machine could take a web link from a database that we're using for
genealogy records. You type it in, and yeah, sometimes you have to give a little bit more
details and then pops out a citation. Now this works for blog posts, books, journal articles, and
the like. It's not so great for specific records in genealogy databases. So what are you going to
use then? We'll definitely use this for those type of source the preferred style. Although
they have many is Chicago, but you could also use MLA if you want to use genealogy software.
Now I looked at a number of genealogy software, and the one that has a template that is super
super super easy for me is RootsMagic. They have a lot of pre-design forms. Almost all of
them are based on the evidence explained book. So you don't have to get the 892-page book.
You can just use RootsMagic. You can find what you need. Here was a book format, and then you start
putting in the master information. Then you can do the specific information. And then notice there on
the bottom even though it's a little slide, it crafts the citation in the two formats footnote,
short footnote, and bibliography. Copy and paste. Stick it in your reports, projects,
and so forth. And you're good to go. So if you are a genealogy source citation crafting hater or
just disliker or just don't want to mess with it, do keep track of your sources bare minimum. Link
images that you find or articles that you find to your online family tree or your databases.
After that, step it up a little bit by following some of these hacks from my colleagues and myself,
and you can turn from a disliker into ah I'll do it anyway.