Citation for Personal or First Hand Knowledge

A Question on Facebook caused me to write the blog post. How to Cite information about First Hand or Personal Knowledge

Evidence Explained
Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace
Third Edition
by Elizabeth Shown Mill
2015
Genealogical Publishing Company
Baltimore, Maryland

http://astore.amazon.com/dearmyrtlerecommends-20/detail/0806320176

There is an awesome website to visit

Evidence Explained

Is a must have book at your fingertips. The inside cover and following pages are Must Reads, followed by Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. The rest of the book is the icing on the cake.

Page 49 would be the first stop, then proceeding to pages 153-155.

I break it down to What am I looking at and Where did I get it from? But, you say, that doesn't apply. I suggest it does. You told me a story and I want to record it in my database. BUT, I need to include in my Citation something about the relationship between you and the story you are telling.

I hope you realize that all of my citations use the Source Template Feature. I want to have my citations as close as possible to EvidenceExplained. I say as close as possible because of the way Family Tree Maker, back in FTM2010, implemented this feature. The citations are close, The information is there, but may not be in the exact order that is the standard.

The hardest part is to select the right Source Template. We are talking about Personal or First Hand Knowledge. So the Keyword (3 characters) are FIR or PER. In this case I entered FIR, was presented with First Hand Knowledge. The Left Side are the fields to be entered.

• Individual surname
• Individual forename(s)
• Individual address
• Individual location
• Information type

It should be noted, and the hints will tell you, that the Address will not be included in the Reference Note (citation)

You "fill in the blanks" and click OK,

We have defined What am I looking at, and where did I get it.

A new window will open for the citation. Now for the Citation Details. Simply, for this case, "the son of Shirley U Hubbard, attended Mrs. Hubbard's burial on 27 April 1966", is what I put. I know who gave me the information that is in the Source Template, based on that person's personal or first hand knowledge.

Notice that you are given hints as to what is to go into that field.

The Citation Text, in the above is not seen, but I put in

entered 09 Apr 2017

Notice that the two check boxes, Include in reference note, Citation test, and Web address, are removed. I always make a note in the Citation text for my information. I do not include that or the full web address, if I have one, in the Reference note.

The relationship is there, that the informant was at the burial of that same person and the date of the event.

The citation screen looks like this

The reference note is as close to Evidence Explained as I can get it.

[Informant Last Name, First Name], [Town, State, Zip], firsthand knowledge; the son of Shirley U Hubbard, attended Mrs. Hubbard's burial on 27 April 1966.

The Name Fact, Shirley U Hubbard, the Burial Date, the Burial Fact would be linked to this Citation. I would also Cite the Informant's Name Fact as well. Both would have an entry in the Research Log for both.
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Copyright © 2017 by H R Worthington