Phoenix, AZ – April 20, 2009. Every genealogist and family historian from beginner to professional will at some time confront the issue of source citations. Although great advances have been made in recent years to standardize and simplify citations, it is still too difficult. Today on ThinkGenealogy.com a video was released that proposes a better way to cite online sources.

http://www.thinkgenealogy.com/better-online-citations/

This 7.5 minute video consists of two sections. The first section discusses some of the current issues with citing sources especially when it comes to online sources. The second section demonstrates an approach to quickly and accurately cite online sources. The technology needed to accomplish this exists today. The changes proposed by this video requires collaboration between various providers of genealogy software and services.

As a genealogy community, we have at times united to get our voices heard in such areas as records preservation & access, NARA fees, and other topics of key concern. You are invited to watch the video, provide feedback, and learn how we can work together to make citing online sources approachable to all researchers.

About ThinkGenealogy.com

ThinkGenealogy.com is a blog created in July 2007 to discuss ideas and innovation in genealogy and genealogy software. It was recently recognized by ProGenealogists, Inc. as one of the 25 Most Popular Genealogy Blogs for 2009. To learn more, visit: www.ThinkGenealogy.com

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

There are various view points as to why the answer could be “yes” or why it could be “no”. One I find interesting is that the tree falling makes a vibration, but it doesn’t become a sound until some creature is close enough to translate those vibrations into sound.

I have been thinking a lot lately about sources — specifically those used in genealogy to help identity our ancestors and further our research.  Let me see if I can process the recent comments on this blog and the APG list and correlate it with my past thinking.

A source is a thing. So it must have a creator (or recorder).

A source contains information. So it must have an informant.

Very often the creator and informant are two different people.

Sources are Objects

A source is a physical thing.  A document, a picture, an artifact, an audio recording, a video, a grave marker, etc.  True, it is a container of information.  But we can step back and talk about just the container and its creator without talking about the information and the informant.  The stone cutter carved the grave marker.  The census enumerator filled out the census form.  The enumerator created a second copy of the census by referring to the first.  This agency microfilmed the census copy.  That company digitized the microfilmed census.  I wrote a letter.  You created a tape recording.

I like the box of cereal analogy.  Maybe because I have eaten so much cold cereal over the years.  The box of cereal  (the physical box) was created by someone.  It contains Frosted Mini Wheats (or insert your preferred cereal) that was provided by someone else.  The box is the source and has a creator.  The contents is the information provided by an informant.

Can the source and the creator be the same?  No, how can a creator create itself.  So it is flawed to say that a person is a source.  A person can be a creator or an informant, but not a source. Let’s consider an example:

Your great grandfather on January 1, 1900 went out into the forest to think.  On that day he decided that he was never again going to swear or lose his temper.  Nobody was around and for many years he never told anyone.  He never wrote it down.  But that decision was important and shaped the rest of his life.  He remembers the day, because it was the first day of the new century.  Many years later he tells his son, your grandfather.  This knowledge positively effects your grandfather and he always remembered the story told to him by his father.  He never wrote it down either and he never passed the story along until one day he tells you.   A few years later your grandfather dies. Now you are the only one who knows the story and the details.

What if your great grandfather never shared the story?  Would there be a source?

When you hear the story, if you never write it down is there a source?

I think that no source exists.  There is no physical object and no creator.

Let’s say you write down the story.  You are the creator of the document.  Now a source exists.

I think this is what Donn Devine was saying in his APG post:

“…the unfixed oral utterance, from human memory, is recognized, but for practical purposes is not used until it has been captured in fixed form and can be cited
as a record. By their nature, most textual records are initially based on transitory knowledge and memories, either of the human recorder, or of a human informant …

Excepting records produced by recording devices, an original textual record source–the first fixing of the information it contains–is in fact always derived from another source, the person who created the record, or the human informant who provided the information being recorded.”

Sources Contain Information

Now lets say that as a child, your received a journal for a birthday present.  You keep the journal all your life, but you never write anything in it; not even your name.  Do you have a source?

All you have is an empty book.  There is a thing and a creator of that thing.  There is also an informant (or a potential informant) but no recorded information.  No source exists.

Once you start writing in the journal, then there is a source.

I find it very useful to consider a source as an object and classify it as original or derivative based on whether it was created based on another object.  If the source object was created based on an informant and that informant only received the information from another informant and so on until the first informant, then the source would be original.  Otherwise, the source would be derivative.

Back to the Grave Marker

The physician witnessed the death of a person and was an informant providing death information for the death certificate (a document created by someone else).  A source exists and it is original.  Not because the informant provided primary information, but because the certificate was created based on an informant and not another source.

A family member also witnesses the passing of their loved one and provides information on the forms at the mortuary.  This family member is an informant and is also providing primary information.  The form is an original source.  Once again, not because the information provided was primary, but because the information came from an informant and not another source.

Now the stone cutter gets the form and proceeds to create the marker.  The marker is an object created by a stone cutter.  It contains information.  It is a source.  Following a strict definition, the marker was created based on another source and is therefore derivative.

But is this a special case that warrants a special name?

The federal copy of a local census is strictly a derivative as it is a transcript, but because of special circumstances we give it the name “duplicate original” and we can treat it as if it were the original.  There are often transcription errors between the two sources, but it doesn’t stop us from calling both originals.

Is our grave marker example a similar situation?

There could be differences between the form and the grave marker, but because they are essentially part of the same “transaction” does it merit the classification of  duplicate original and therefore both can be considered an original.  What if the form no longer exists and the grave marker is all that is left?  Does lack of the “true” original help elevate the grave maker to the classification of an original?

Back to the title of this post: If a Person has Some Information and they Never Share it, Is There Still a Source?

I say that a person is never a source; they can only be an informant or a creator.  No source exists if there is no object/container and no information/contents.

Related Posts

Confusion with the Various Definitions of Original Source

More on Sources: Original, Derivative, or Otherwise

Attending physicians aren’t usually stone cutters

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Previous versions of Legacy allowed for source citations, but not anywhere near this level.  So this improved citaion feature can be considered an incremental innovation.  Evidence Explained (or EE ) is 885 pages and contains around a thousand citation models for U.S. and international documents.  Just reading the book is an accomplishment in itself but then translating that into software? Amazing!

EE was published around August 2007 and Legacy 7 was released in June 2008.  I know that Geoff Rasmussen put in many hours during those months reading and re-reading EE, thinking about it, talking with ESM, translating citation models into software requirements, creating templates, and then testing them. I dare say that Geoff is in an elite class of a few that know this book backwards and forwards. Ken McGinnis and Dave Berdan spent many hours coding SourceWriter and the other Legacy 7 features.

With SourceWriter, a genealogist can more easily find the appropriate template among so many and then fill in the blanks with the needed information.  There is no question of which citation information is needed for the document that you are citing.

Quite possibly because of the innovative work of the Legacy team, other genealogy software applications now support or will soon support EE source templates.  If my 2009 genealogy predictions come true, more and more genealogy applications (desktop and online) will support these templates.  They will become a new standard.  So does that mean that this feature is an incremental change with side effects or a transformational change?

Let me end with a story.  For many years I have thought about EE’s predecessor, Evidence!, and how it could be implemented in software.  When EE  was published, I got more excited as I saw how the QuickCheck Models could be translated into software requirements.  It would take a lot of effort and time, but the time felt right.  I would catch myself thinking about this over and over, doing preliminary designs in my head.  One day I was driving home from work listening to a DearMYRTLE podcast interview with Geoff.  He was leaking some information about Legacy 7.  When he said something to the effect of “source citation models following Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence Explained” I literally cried out “Nooooo!”  They had beat me to it.

I have since met the Legacy team and consider them as friends.  This is the first time they have heard this story.  They have had no warning about this post and will likely be surprised that they are the winners of the second ThinkGenealogy Innovator award.

Ten years passed between the publication of Evidence Explained and its predecessor, Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian.  Even with the passing of a decade, I consider Evidence Explained an incremental innovation that has caused some beneficial side effects. 

Incremental Innovation

Whereas Evidence! simply gave citation examples for primary, subsequent, and bibliographic entries, Evidence Explained gives citation examples, explanation of record types, and QuickCheck Models:

Each QuickCheck Model shows a sample citation that is annotated with descriptions of what type of information goes where in the citation.  The model shown above is for a digital image of a census record on an online commercial web site (see EE, page 240).  The parts of a citation are identified as Census ID, Jurisdiction, Schedule, Civil Division, Page ID, Household ID, etc.  The model looks like a form that was then filled in with a citation.  The innovation of the QuickCheck Model for citations makes it easier to understand the citation format and apply it to your own sources.

Side Effects

A side effect of this innovation is that now citation models following Evidence Explained are showing up in genealogy software.  The format of the QuickCheck Model also makes it easy for developers to code the templates into their software.  Two examples are Legacy 7 and RootsMagic 4.  It is likely that this trend will continue as it has already been announced as an upcoming feature of Family Tree Maker 2009.  As more and more software applications include citation models from Evidence Explained, it will become a standard and one day be as commonplace as GEDCOM is today. 

Watch out for online database sites such as Ancestry, FamilySearch, Footnote, and WorldVitalRecords to see which is the first to follow Evidence Explained.  Whether or not QuickCheck Models were created with software developers in mind, it is apparent that this incremental innovation is having some real side effects.

To learn how to make a ThinkGenealogy Innovator Award nomination, check out the Innovator Awards page.

One point that I brought up in today’s visit that is an issue with not just Footnote, but also FamilySearch, Ancestry, World Vital Records, and other online database/document sites is that there is a lack of consistency with source citations.  For example, the same census document could have different citations on different sites and none of the citations follow the format in either of Elizabeth Shown Mills’ works: Evidence! or Evidence Explained.  When I download an image from one of these sites, I should get automatic source citation in my desktop genealogy application as well as additional details such as source provenance.  It should be very easy.  To modify a phrase from an action movie: “With great source repositories, comes great responsibility.”

 It is very encouraging to see companies like Footnote take an interest in what its members and potential members care about.  I was impressed by the Footnote team and site and get the feeling that the innovation hasn’t stopped yet.

As an added bonus, I got to meet Dick Eastman.  Overall, what a great experience!

I like the fact the WorldVitalRecords geocodes all records added to their site.  Why you are at it, why don’t you add source citations in metadata/xml form following the conventions in Elizabeth Shown Mills book, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace? 

Currently source citation is hard.  When it is available, it is in text format that must be copied and pasted into your genealogy program.  But source citation is vital so that proper evaluation of evidence can be done and so that constant re-examination of the same records can be avoided.  If when you click on a document to download the image, the link was instead something like an rss link that has metadata with it (think rss enclosure tag) and if that xml format were a standard then genealogy software could read the information, add the image to the application, and add the proper source citation.  What could be easier for a user than every time a document image is downloaded from an online database, the source was automatically cited?  The software developers would be half way there as they would then just need to add a way to manually add the same information for offline sources. 

The first analysis that needs to be done with a source is to determine if it is original or derivative.  The metadata could include this information already.  The next step would be to have the metadata for derivative sources include the source provenance all the way back to the original.  Who would be in a better position to know that than the site owner who negotiated with the owner of the source content?  This identification would then only have to be done once correctly and it would save many family historians/genealogists from doing the same work and sometimes incorrectly. 

Now the metadata would also be available to search engines and special source searches could be created to find and aggregate the information.  Think about what Google, Technorati, Digg, del.icio.us, Facebook or others could do with this type of information.

1. Creating a source citation metadata standard. 
2. Being the first records site to metadata source cite all their content. 
3. Making it extremely easy to cite online sources. 
4. Creating a whole new way to search for records. 

Now talk about jumping curves!

Some of these ideas I have shared before in Expanded Vision of Genealogy 2.0.

Happy curve jumping.

Web 2.0

The term Web 2.0 has been around since 2004 and is defined by wikipedia as the:

“perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users”

There is much debate over the definition of Web 2.0 and what makes a website “Web 2.0″.  According to SEOmoz.org, some of the defining characteristics of Web 2.0 are:

• User generated and/or user influenced content
• Applications that use the Web (versus the desktop) as a platform, in innovative ways
• Similar visual design and shared functional languages
• Leveraging of popular trends, including blogging, social tagging, wikis, and peer-to-peer sharing
• Inclusion of emerging web technologies like RSS, AJAX, APIs (and accompanying mashups), Ruby on Rails and others
• Open source or sharable/editable frameworks in the form of user-oriented “create your own” APIs

Web 2.0 links:

• O’Reilly Radar - Web 2.0 Compact Definition: Trying Again
• SEOmoz’s Web 2.0 Awards
• WebTrends 2.0 - Web 2.0 Directory
• Pixel Acres - The Visual Design of Web 2.0
• Web Design from Scratch - Current Style in Web Design

Sample Sites:

• Flickr
• del.icio.us
• LinkedIn
• Wikipedia

Genealogy 2.0

When I search the internet for “genealogy 2.0″, I get a number of sites that talk about the application of Web 2.0 to genealogy.  These sites mention social networking and collaboration as key components of Genealogy 2.0.  One blog, The Plog: Pytlewski Log, states:

“traditionally genealogy 2.0 has only referred to the new internet based applications that are changing the way we collaborate as a genealogical community”

My view of Genealogy 2.0 is broader than Web 2.0 genealogy application or what I term, Web 2.0+Gen.  Maybe it is because I have developed both web applications and Windows client applications.  Maybe it is because I see so many areas for improvement and innovation in genealogy software and I don’t want to wait around for Genealogy 2.5 or 3.0.  Or maybe it is just the developer in me that wants to avoid tight coupling. But pairing Genealogy 2.0 with Web 2.0 excludes genealogy software that is not web-based.  It also seems to focus too much on what Web 2.0 is and not what Genealogy 2.0 could be.

Genealogy 2.0 links:

• Genealogy 2.0
• Family Matters

Sample Sites:

• FamilyLink
• Geni
• FamilyPursuit

Expanded View of Genealogy 2.0

Many of these ideas are not new, but have been in the genealogy community for years.  The time is ripe for them to materialize as software that will aid genealogists and family historians to do things that they have never been able to easily do before. 

An expanded view of Genealogy 2.0 includes the following characteristics:

• Social networking 
• Collaboration during research, analysis, and conclusions
• More than just sharing data and results
• Supports sources, information, evidence, and conclusions
• Document-centered data collection
• Standardized source citation (see Evidence Explained)
• Source citation as data not text
• Source provenance
• Information extraction
• Evidence evaluation and weight
• Conclusion recording
• Online data backup
• Community of researchers
• Online data storage or peer-to-peer offline storage
• Data linking and layering, not merging
• Expanded to include not only web-based applications but also desktop and mobile
• Modernizing of GEDCOM or replacement with XML-based format
• The ability to not do anything with genealogy for a year and then start right where I left off without any loss of information or momentum

Now the last point may just be my own personal wish list item, but if  a Genealogy 2.0 application included a place to put everthing and kept track of what I have done and what else needs to be done then it would be much easier to continue where I left off.

Genealogy 2.0 Expanded links:

• Source-Centricity
• Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace by Elizabeth Shown Mills
• The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual

I look forward to your comments and ideas about Genealogy 2.0.

The user interface is clean and consistent.  A tutorial explains the application and there are help links available on every page.  I was interested in how the company would fulfill their promise to “enable genealogy enthusiasts to involve family members who have never engaged in family history work. ”  After spending a few hours using the beta, I think Family Pursuit, LC is on a path of innovation for genealogy software.  Those more experienced with family history now have tools available to mentor beginners in the research process and work collaboratively toward a common goal.

It is early in the beta process and not all features are available.  Overall, I like what I have seen so far and will share more details as the beta testing continues.

The book can be purchased from Genealogical Publishing Company.