How To: Source a Book

So, you found and purchased a book that has genealogical information about your Family. How do you Cite your Sources from this book.

When I pick up a book, for the first time, I start at the Sources Workspace. This same process can be done from the People Workspace, Person Tab, and selecting a Fact. But I will start in the Sources Workspace to enter the information about this book. Will add Source-Citation information later.

Going to the Sources Workspace, selecting Add, on the Right side of that screen, an Add Source window will open. For this example, a Keyword will be used to locate the correct Template. "Book" is entered:

Below is the types of Books that have specific Templates.

The Book is a Print Publication. So that entry is selected:

Selecting that will bring up the Add Source Screen to be filled in. All of this information is in the front cover of the book. There is no call number or an ISBN number.

Clicking OK will bring up a completed Source Citation screen.

As it appears that there is a lot of information in this book, the other fields will be left blank, at this point.

Since some of the following steps have been covered in other blog posts, screen prints won't be here.

Going to the People Workspace, Person Tab, the information about the individual is entered. In this case, the Name is Ellwood Palmer Strode. The Name Fact is selected, at the top of the list of Facts, the Right Hand (RH) Panel will present his name and under the name is the Fact, Sources, Media, Notes line. Selecting New and select Use Existing Source-Citation selection, which will bring up a screen, where you select a New Copy. Keep in mind that earlier, the Source-Citation was left blank, but want to use that same Source-Citation for specific information about this person and fact.

The new (copy) of the Source-Citation screen is presented and is filled in. In this specific book, each individual has a Number followed by the name. In addition to the number and name, the page number is entered. Since there is more information on this page, the details of that information will be put into the Notes section for this individual. That is noted in the Citation text, for clarity in End Notes.

Going to the notes section for this individual, specific information is recorded. Because there are written notes in the book, they are also noted. Also, there is some missing information in the book. For clarity, the Text in this paragraph are marked in Bold, as a reminder to pick them up as Facts for this person and other people in this family.

Since this has his Birth Date, that Fact is entered, with birth date and location.

This time, since the same source-citation is going to be used, the New pull down menu, and the Use Existing Source Citation and the Link to Citation option is used. Since there may be multiple 'existing' Source-Citations, placing the mouse cursor over the specific Source-Citation will bring up more details on that Source-Citation. The screen capture would not show in the following screen. The right Source-Citation entry is selected AND the Link to Citation button is used this time.

Let's see what we have so far. Going to the Publish Workspace, Individual, Individual Report, the following Report is generated. The Items to include ICON, in the RH Panel, is verified to Include Sources in the Report. The Birth and Death Facts were entered and Cited. There are subscript number at the end of the Facts with Source-Citations and the Source is shown at the end. The text from the Notes section is also included.

After entering more information from what is indicated in the Notes, return to the Publish Workspace, Relationship Collection and the Family Group Sheet to see the current statue of this Family. As above, each fact indicates that a Source-Citation is associated with it, and is presented at the end of Family Group Sheet.

Going back to the Source Workspace, each Source can be Rated. In the Center panel, at the bottom, is a list of people using that Source-Citation. on the tool bar between the top and bottom of the center panel is a Start. Clicking on that Star will allow the user to Rate the Source. Selecting the "Use standardized ratings" check mark, there are four questions that you select and the details are on the Right. In this case, there are primary sources needed and needs some follow up. As noted above, some of the information on the page about this person are hand written. You can note your justification at the bottom of that screen.

Closing that window, with the OK button, the Source-Citation screen appears. So see details about that specific Source-Citation, hi-lighting it will provide the details on the Right and who is using that Source-Citation on which Facts.

Selecting the "[no source-citation information]"  link shows blanks on the right and the indication that no one is using it. This is there so that it can be selected for the next person listed in the text from the book. It is basically a blank Source-Citation and not being used. Because there is much more information, that [no source-citation information] line will remain.

Returning to the next person mentioned, selecting the name, or other Facts, the New Source, Link to Existing Source-Citation menu is uses, and Create New Copy

Returning to the updated Family Group Sheet, in the Publish workspace, Relationship Collection, the second Source-Citation appears. What was added, based on the text in the notes, the Birth Date and location was added, with it's source-citation.

These steps are repeated until the information in this book are entered and cited. 



© 2010, copyright H R Worthington