RLP 242: RLP with DNA 5 – Write Source Citations for DNA and Documentary Sources

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like A Pro, episode 242 RLP at DNA five Write Source Citations for DNA and documentary sources Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the authors of Research Like a Pro A Genealogist Guide. With Robin Wirthlin they also co-authored the companion volume, Research Like a Pro with DNA. Join Diana and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases.

Nicole (43s):
Let’s go. Today’s episode is sponsored by newspapers.com breakdown Genealogy Brick Walls with a subscription to the largest online newspaper archive. Hi everyone. Welcome to Research. Like a Pro.

Diana (58s):
Hi. Nicole, how are you today?

Nicole (59s):
Great. I’ve been working on my study group assignment, which was to get started with kinda keeping track of Matches and Airtable and clustering and thinking about some Brick Walls I wanna work on. It was interesting to really look and see how many test I have for my project. I have amassed a lot, I have 10 descendants of my research subject and three people who are possibly rate related on the dire side further back, so I’m excited to dive into those.

Diana (1m 25s):
Oh wow, that’s great. Do you have some people that are new that you don’t really know much about their match list? So you’re having to really learn about those, those

Nicole (1m 33s):
Three that are unknown, how they’re related. One of them is an exact Y D N A match at one 11 markers. so I was kind of planning on focusing on his Matches.

Diana (1m 43s):
Nice. Nice. Well, for my DNA project, I am using a test taker who I’ve used before, who’s two generations closer to the research subject. So I’m primarily using his. I may add in some, some more, but for the purpose of this one, I think his Matches are going to be really good. Great. So we’re also getting ready for Roots Tech and I’m excited because I’ve been getting all my presentations ready. and I am working with a couple of other accredited Genealogy professionals to do two classes. There’ll be power hours and one will be on Accreditation. Just kind of an overview, answering questions, kind of common things that people come up with.

Diana (2m 25s):
And then the other is just basic research skills. So that’s always fun to do some discussion on how people can become better researchers. So if any of you’re coming to Roots Tech, I invite you to come join us for our classes.

Nicole (2m 39s):
Those sound great.

Diana (2m 40s):
Well, for announcements, we have our Research Psycho Pro Webinar series for 2023 up and running, and we have monthly case studies featuring our research Psycho Pro and research psycho Pro with DNA process. So we invite you to check that out and join us. The next research Research Like, a Pro study group is this fall, August and November, 2023. And we have peer group leader applications on our website. We invite you to join our newsletter for coupons for our courses. As those come open, we run periodic sales and you can find out about those through our newsletter. And then as I mentioned, roots Tech is still open for registration and you can join us in Salt Lake City or you can watch some of the online presentations which are free.

Diana (3m 32s):
And the National Genealogical Society Conference is also open for registration and that will be in Richmond, Virginia, that very end of May, 1st of June.

Nicole (3m 44s):
Well, today we’re talking about chapter five of Research Like a Pro with DNA N, which is about writing Source Citations for DNA n and documentary sources. And this is an important part of the process because we need to cite our d n evidence and that can be kind of a challenge if it’s your first time incorporating DNA evidence. So some people might wonder like where do you incorporate that into your research? Usually we’ll put Source Citations in our research log, in our notes, and in our genealogical software. But when we’re ready to share conclusions, we put those Citations into our research report or a narrative family history or a blog post, a proof argument, a journal article, even a Lineage Society application.

Nicole (4m 29s):
Source Citations are so important because they give credence to our our materials and help us to show that we have done credible research. And the second element of the genealogical proof standard is that we have complete and accurate Source Citations, which show the research scope and our sources quality. So whenever we have something that we’re saying that isn’t common knowledge, we need to give attribution and use a citation And. so when we have really good Citations that are informative, it helps prove our conclusions, but it also allows fellow researchers to follow that citation to its source and they can decide if they believe that information and evaluate it themselves.

Nicole (5m 11s):
And this can be a bit challenging with DNA evidence because a lot of the time that we’re using DNA n a evidence, we’re using Matches between two test takers that are behind a password wall and not everyone can go and view that match, which is why one of the DNA standards is to have some of your evidence be available in publicly available databases like Jed Match so that others can evaluate that. But that doesn’t always have to be the only solution. And sometimes for like publishing in a journal, the author will allow the editors to log into their match results and view the Matches and the results that way. And sometimes people use screenshots of the Matches and add those to their written work in order to allow other people to evaluate that.

Nicole (5m 57s):
But documenting our DNA sources is just so important to allow us to meet standards and ensure others can follow our research and either agree or disagree with our conclusions. So when do you create your Citations? We usually do in the beginning and in the middle. And at the end of our research it’s good to have those created as soon as we view the source and not put it off until we’re writing and a documentary source. We’re all very familiar with that in Genealogy research. It can be anything or any person providing information about a factor relationship. And these are commonly birth and death marriage certificates, census records, gravestones letters, published histories and those kind of things.

Nicole (6m 42s):
For DNA sources, we may have reports created by testing companies, family trees of DNA, N Matches reference material that explains DNA n inheritance patterns and that kind of thing. So figuring out how to cite your D N A and documentary research will be a very important tool to help you prove your work when you’re incorporating D N A evidence,

Diana (7m 5s):
Right? I think sometimes we wouldn’t think that we would need Citations for DNA sources, but they are so important. D and I know when I was first starting my D N A work, I didn’t keep Citations for different things that I created like a a leads chart or running a report on genetic affairs for auto clusters. And you forget so quickly what you have done and your parameters, your settings when you did these reports, you know? So it’s just a really good way to track what you are doing with your DNA work. So as with any citation, the first step is really to understand the source.

Diana (7m 45s):
And when we’re using our documentary sources, we have to learn all about the source before we can create a citation. We have to understand that microfilm. I often will look at the beginning of the microfilm to see what the original book was, they microfilmed and used that in my citation. Or sometimes we use the catalog entry for whatever website we’re using to really understand where that original document came from. That’s microfilmed. Or if it is an email sent to us, we try to understand where they got their information And. so there’s so many things we try to understand when we’re creating our documentary for Citations.

Diana (8m 25s):
And with DNA, Source Citations, it’s no different. We really need a clear understanding of the sources we’re using and like documentary genealogical sources, DNA sources can also be original derivative or authored. And we will talk more about that when we do our episode on chapter six, all about analyzing sources. But let’s just think about some of the common Source Citations that we might want to create And. so as we go through this episode, we’re going to talk about the different elements and we’ll use the same Citations to illustrate the different points.

Diana (9m 8s):
So we’ve tried to come up with some examples from all sorts of different things that you could create a DNA source citation about.

Nicole (9m 16s):
Well, let’s talk about the different elements of Source Citations because sometimes we look at a citation and feel overwhelmed about how to create one like that. How do you know what to put first? What do you include? What do you not include? So it really helps to think about each element of a citation that needs to be included. Genealogy standards defines five questions of a source citation, and the citation should answer these questions. So the first is, who created the source? Then what is the source? when was the source created or accessed? where is the source?

Nicole (9m 56s):
And wherein the source is the item of information used. So when we create our source citation, we can just answer these five questions and then we’ll know that we have covered the most important elements of a source citation. So let’s go through our examples and we’ll start with who created the source and we’ll do examples for that. And then we’ll go on to what is the source and we’ll tell you examples for that and that will help us kind of discuss what needs to be included in a citation for typical DNA sources.

Diana (10m 30s):
Okay, so starting with who created the source. When we are writing a report either for ourselves or to share with family members or for a client, we might want to be quoting an expert from a book or a blog post or the is OG wiki And. so we will need a citation for anything that we are quoting. We often know much more about DNA than the people we’re sharing it with such as a family member. And maybe we don’t want to try to explain something when it’s already been explained really well somewhere else And. so we might use someone else’s words And. so we would do a citation.

Diana (11m 11s):
So for a Wiki article, the who created it would be the International Society of Genetic Genealogy, or is OG Wiki And. so that would be the creator. If it is a book, you would have it be the authors such as for the book, genetic Genealogy and Practice, that would be Blaine T Beninger and Debbie Parker Wayne. And then for a blog post, another example would be Robin Wirthlin. So the who is fairly easy to figure out for a book article or blog post. But when it comes to doing a citation for a report or company tool, we have to really think about who the creator is.

Diana (11m 52s):
And if someone has given you a report from their dna, then they would be the creator. And for example, my genetic cousin, Donald Robert Royston created a report for a white DNA royston project that we did almost 15 years ago. And he was the author, he took the results, put them into a report that he created himself, And. so he is the who. But if it’s an online report or tool generated by a DNA testing company or a third party website, then that company or website would be the who. So for instance, it could be family tree DNA or My Heritage or Genetic Affairs.

Diana (12m 37s):
Now often when we are writing a source citation, the who is listed first, like with an author, but if it is a website, we also would list that website as part of the where is the source and there’s no need to be redundant and put that in there twice And. so we can just save that part of it for when we’re listing the ware because it’ll be obvious about where that report came from. And then we often use online family trees in our Source Citations for genetic Genealogy because it’s so important to trace those generational Links.

Diana (13m 18s):
And we can refer to an online tree and in that case the name of the tree’s creator as shown on the website would be the who. So for instance, for my family tree, I have put my full name on there, Diana Elder, but other people will use a different name, perhaps they will just use a portion of their name. So one of my genetic cousins, she has just put M Romine. So just using her first initial. So you just would write the Who however it is on the online family tree. And then finally, another important source that we use in our work are the diagrams that we create of our dna, Matches And.

Diana (14m 1s):
so for the question of who, for a diagram or graph, we would just state the name of the creator, whoever created that, whether it’s you or someone else would be the who.

Nicole (14m 12s):
Great explanation of who created the source. I think if we think about the whole question, who created the source, it’s much easier to answer than if we just think of who, because sometimes people might get confused and think the who is like the person that it’s about, but it’s really supposed to be the person who created the source. So it’s good to think of that whole question.

Diana (14m 32s):
That is a really common scenario that trips people up. I agree.

Nicole (14m 37s):
Okay, the next element is what is the source? So what is the thing we’re looking at? Sometimes this is answered by the title of the thing. Like when you’re looking at a book article or blog post for citation rules, usually the title of something is put into quotation marks or set off by italics if it’s a published item. So like if it’s a chapter within an item, then the chapter is in quotation marks and then the full book name or whatever is in italics. So that tells the reader that that thing is the publication. So for example, for the book Genetic Genealogy and Practice, that title would be the what and it would be set off in italics.

Nicole (15m 20s):
And then for an article on the is OG wiki, that would be the specific title of the article would be considered like a chapter in a book almost. So that title would be put into quotation marks. So for example, the article called Y chromosome d n A test would be the what for a blog post, the what would be the title of the blog post. And that would be put into quotation marks as well. For example, Robin’s Post called Understanding and using Your D N A Results for Simple Steps. So those are the what is the source for like books and articles. Now what about for reports and company tools? Usually this is gonna be on a website And.

Nicole (16m 1s):
so it will be titled something and we’ll put that title into quotation marks. Usually like a DNA match page or something. We’ll have a description of that page And. so that will be like the title of that report or page. Sometimes we need to add like a little description of what exactly it is we’re looking at. If it’s not clear And. so you might want to add a term like database report or blog post to really tell the reader what exactly it is we’re looking at if it’s not clear. So for these DNA reports on like a DNA testing company website, one of the titles would be ethnicity estimate report for Diana Elder, and that would be in quotation marks.

Nicole (16m 46s):
And then following that would be Ancestry D N A pub, the publication. But the what really is the title of that specific item on Ancestry’s website, the ethnicity report. And then another example would be Donald Roy’s report that he wrote about the Y D N A markers And. so the what for that would be the title that he gave that report, which is the results of the 46 marker DNA male Y chromosome test. And then this citation also includes a description of what exactly this is And, so it’s Y DNA Roy in project. So it kind of helps the reader to understand a little more about what this is.

Nicole (17m 29s):
Then let’s say we’re looking at a JED match report and it’s an X D N A comparison. So what we would put for that in quotation marks would be X D N A comparison database version 2.1, 0.0 a, and then a little description afterward that it’s a database report. Now let’s say we’re looking at A Y D N surname project. The title for that is whatever the title is for the surname project. So this one for example is KU Kuss, et cetera dna Genealogy website, Y D N, classic chart, and all that is within quotes because that’s the title of it and then the description of it, which is also part of the what is why chromosome DNA N S T R surname project results.

Nicole (18m 19s):
So it’s just kind of telling people this is like the results page for the surname project. And then finally, let’s say we’re looking at a My Heritage report of a DNA match. The title of that page is Review DNA match for Robin Wirthlin, and then the description is database report. Let’s do one more. Let’s say we’re looking at the auto cluster report on genetic affairs that we’ve generated and the title given to that one was Auto Cluster Visualization for Robin, Wirthlin And. so that would be in quotes. And then we add the little database report afterward to let people know it’s a database report. So pretty much you’re just looking at what the title is that the company has given that report and you put that title in quotation marks.

Nicole (19m 6s):
Now for an online family tree, you would just use the name of the treat and the description that it’s like a public MA member tree on ancestry. Another thing you couldn’t add for the, what is a description of whether or not the tree has accurate data and I it’s source cited. So on Diana’s tree she has put source data for the family of William Houston Schultz and Dora Algae Royston. And that’s also part of the what cuz she’s telling you specifically that she’s looking at this information that has sources for the digital diagrams. You know when we create a diagram or graft illustrate connections between DNA Matches, the title for that would be whatever title, you know, usually it’s something we have created ourselves, so we can give it a title and then we can cite that title.

Nicole (19m 51s):
An example of a title of a diagram would be do Smith descendant diagram and that would be in quotes. And then we can add a description of exactly what it is digital diagram created with lucid chart. So that helps people know, okay, this is a diagram and then let’s say I made a Guffy network graph and I want to cite that I can cite myself as the creator. And then the title of it would be Guffy Network Graph or John Smith using ancestry DNA data. And then the description of it would be Digital diagram created with gfi. So you can see there’s kind of two parts of the what, there’s the title of it and then if you decide you need to add a description of what it is that is also part of the what is the source.

Diana (20m 31s):
Well thanks for taking us through all the different what’s and I just wanna reiterate that it’s important to put these into quotation marks so people know that’s a title or if it’s a published work, like a book, put that in metallics And. so we always wanna remember punctuation that really helps the reader if you are reading a paragraph with no punctuation in a book, that would be so hard to understand. And our punctuation is the same way in these Source Citations. It helps us to understand what we are looking at. So when we get to the part about when for the source citation, we’re thinking about when was the source published, created, or accessed.

Diana (21m 12s):
And with a book article or blog post, that would be the data publication. And this is really important in the field of genetic Genealogy because new things come out about DNA all the time, And. So we wanna make sure we’re citing the latest developments so our citation can really show that. So if we are citing an article from a wiki, we should always include both the revision date and the access date. Similarly, a blog post citation would include the date published and the access date and a blog author may revise or update a post as well and you could note that date.

Diana (21m 52s):
So we wanna remember that things change in DNA and people update their information And. so we wanna keep track of that in our Citations. So for example, for the book Genetic Genealogy and Practice, we would just have the publication date of 2016. But for the Zog Wiki article about Y chromosome DNA tests, we would put revised for September, 2019 and it was accessed on 21 October, 2019. So we’d actually have two dates there. And then for a blog post for Robin’s post on understanding and using your DNA results, we have the original publication date of 22 February, 2019, and then the access date of eight February, 2020.

Diana (22m 38s):
So we may have two dates because of these revisions. Now when we are talking about the when for a report and company tools, we would cite the date a DNA match report was created and downloaded. And although the information is not likely to change, the date will be necessary if the database updates the algorithm used to calculate the report. So let’s look at a couple examples there. For the Y DNA Royston report, the date that that was written was 24 October, 2009 and then a parenthesis revised 21 June, 2010.

Diana (23m 19s):
So we have the original date and the revision date and then the date that it was actually sent to me was 2017. So that actually gives a little bit of a history of that report right there with having the dates Now for an ethnicity estimate, those change all the time. So it’s really important to have the dates there And. So that would be an access date. So for instance, the ethnicity report for Diana Elder access 21 October, 2019. And actually that would be really helpful to know what the ethnicity was at that date And. so as those get updated and revised, we can keep doing new Citations for those.

Diana (24m 1s):
For an XD n a comparison rent on Jed Match, we would put the date it was downloaded because that’s what the report is, it’s a downloaded version. So we’d say downloaded 19 January, 2019 for a Y DNA surname project results. For the Koons Y DNA classic chart, we would just put the access date of 22 October, 2018. And then if we were coming back to that chart when new information had been added years later, we would just recognize we were citing a previous version. And then for reviewing a DNA match for Robin Wirthlin, same thing, we would put the date that was accessed such as 10 September, 2019.

Diana (24m 47s):
And if we were doing an auto cluster visualization, we would also put the day we access that. So hopefully you kind of can understand that it’s important when we are running these reports and we’re citing these things to have those dates there. Now if we are citing an online family tree, we’ll want to cite the specific day and year we access the tree because the same reason online trees change often And. so we would just do our access date and that will be part of the portion of the citation that’s in parentheses. And then if we have a digital diagram, we will want to put the date that that was created.

Diana (25m 29s):
We could say generated eight February, 2021 for a Luci chart or for a gefi graph. We wanna make sure we have those dates there. Very important for the when to be really clear about when something was created or downloaded or reported or accessed.

Nicole (25m 46s):
Alright, great. The next element is where is the source And? so when you’re citing a published source, like a book or an article or blog post that’s answered by the place of publication, a book could be physically located in a lot of different places and libraries or out of print. So what you do is you just put the place where it was originally published that allows people to locate the Publisher if they need to for the book Genetic Genealogy and Practice that was published in Arlington, Virginia. So that is the answer to the where is the source for that book. Then for an article that’s published online, the where is the U R L, it’s good to cite the complete URL for those in case the website disappears, people can use the internet Archive Wayback machine to relocate the original article.

Nicole (26m 35s):
So because the URL is part of the publication information, we use parentheses to set it apart from the other citation information, the same as how how we put the location of publication in parentheses for a book for the article on the iso wiki about Y chromosome d n tests. The URL for that is the the where, so it would be https slash slash iog.org/wiki/y chromosome DNA test. So that would be the url. And then for Robin Wirthlin blog post, the URL that we would put is from FamilyLocket dot com slash understanding and using your DNA results for simple steps.

Nicole (27m 17s):
So those are the full URLs there. Then the where for reports, like for Donald Roy’s report for example, if this one is privately held by Diana Elder, it could be Diana’s location. For reports from DNA testing companies, you’re gonna put a url for example, for the ethnicity estimate for Diana Elder, that one is www.ancestry.com/dna/origins. So kind of giving you an idea of what the URL is. Of course if somebody goes to that url, they’re not going to see Diana’s ethnicity estimate, but it gives people an idea of where it would be if you had access to her results.

Nicole (27m 56s):
And then for the X D N A comparison, GEDMatch or the where is@gedmatch.com. And then for the Koons d n project, the where is family tree dna.com/public/koon iframe wire results. And then for Robin’s, my Heritage DNA match the where is my heritage.com/dna/match. And then the where for the auto cluster visualization is www.geneticaffairs.com. So a lot of these it’s going to be a url. Same with the online family trees, it’s gonna be the URL where that tree is located. Then the digital diagram for where something is you would just put privately held by Nicole, Dyer, Tucson, Arizona, or whoever it is who created it.

Diana (28m 48s):
Okay, great. Well let’s go on and talk about the wherein is the item of information. When we are working with documentary sources, we cite specifics, such a page or image number to point to the specific information item. And many of the sources, as Nicole mentioned, can only be accessed by the user such as DNA Matches or ethnicity reports. But we can add specific details about that report such as segment data, apple groups, or ethnicity percentages to our Citations to help the reader understand and to help remind us. So when we’re citing a specific detail within a book or article, we would simply identify the page or paragraph where the information is found.

Diana (29m 33s):
And if you’re citing the whole book, you don’t need to cite a specific page. So for instance, for the Beninger Wayne book, genetic Genealogy and Practice, if we were citing a specific paragraph out of that, we would just use the page number, you know, 23. And if we are citing an wiki article that perhaps is long, we could put in paragraph two. But if we are citing a blog post, we wouldn’t need to cite something specifically within that because they’re generally not as long as a book or a log long wiki article. So just use your common sense about what would be the specifics needed there.

Diana (30m 14s):
Now when we are working with reports and company tools, we have to add specific information because the details can only be accessed by the user and if you’re trying to relocate a match, this will help you find the match more easily because most DNA companies allow you sort by DNA and search by name. Also, if a DNA match deletes their test results, the citation preserves the details. So for a public site such as GEDMatch or Y D E projects that anyone can access, you can cite specific kit numbers use in the comparison and other particular data. But for another company such as Ancestry that no one else can look at but you then you would add some details.

Diana (30m 59s):
So let’s look at some examples for the white DNA Royston report, we could say something like showing Matches for Bill Jean Royston and Donald Robert Royston matching 100% in all 46 markers. So because that is not a public available test, we would wanna give some details. And the same for the ethnicity report for Diana, Elder could put the specifics of 81% England wells in Northwestern Europe, 11% Ireland and Scotland, 8% Norway, which also preserves the ethnicity for that specific update because you also have the date for an X D N A comparison at JED Match you would put in the actual kit number.

Diana (31m 45s):
So it could be kits a 4 81 54 parenthesis, Nicole Dyer and a 2 7 9 7 2 0 parenthesis Diana Elder chromosome X start stop points 23 2 1 to 1 5 4 8 8 6 2 9 2 196 0.10 cent Morgans. So for GEDMatch it’s great because anyone could read your citation, they could go put in the kit numbers and could verify exactly what you’ve been writing about. Same thing with the Y DNA surname project result.

Diana (32m 26s):
You could just have the actual URL there and someone could go and look at that. If you wanted to point to a particular person on there, you could add that as part of the wherein for the review date in a match for Robin Wirthlin, unless we’re Robin, we can’t log into my heritage and see her report, but we could put in some details about that match. So for instance, estimated second cousin once removed relationship with private sharing, 2.3% DNA 165.70 cent Morgans across eight shared segments managed by private and then the common Ancestors. So a lot of details there for the wherein for the My Heritage DNA match and then for an auto cluster visualization on genetic affairs could do similar details.

Diana (33m 14s):
23 in ME data showing five members in cluster eight with the common Ancestors of E tailored and wa stafford. So you’ll see that the wherein for these DNA reports is quite a bit more than just a page number or an image number. We’re having to actually give some details now for an online family tree that could point to the entire tree with no specific or you could note a specific profile within the tree. So for instance, the citation for the Elkins Cox family tree could also say profile for William Thomas, Billy Cox, 1827 to 1912.

Diana (33m 57s):
So different scenarios for different cases in your reporting. Now for a digital diagram you could include details about the specific Matches or amount of center Morgan’s use in gathering the data. So if you’re doing a lucid chart, you could say DNA Matches from my Heritage Auto cluster report for Jane Doe cluster eight, really giving some more details about that. Or if it was a GFI network graph, your wherein could be files gathered with DNA jed com client using 25 to 250 centor shared data. So again, giving more details since that is the best that we can do with those Citations and it makes the Citations so informative and helpful for going back to your report for one, for anyone else reading the report,

Nicole (34m 48s):
Right? It’s so important in those auto cluster and network graph Citations to include the range of D n that you put in, like you said, 25 to 250 cent Morgans of shared d n a. Then people can know or we can remember which Matches were included and which ones were not included. All right, let’s do a word from our sponsors, newspapers.com. Did your ancestor disappear from vital records? Maybe they’ve moved or got married. newspapers.com can help you find them and tell their stories. Or have you ever had trouble figuring out how people tie into your family tree? Newspapers are filled with birth notices, marriage announcements, and obituaries.

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Diana (36m 9s):
Alright, Thank you. Well, let’s wrap up this episode with the discussion about citation format, styles and standards. You know, we’ve talked a lot about the elements, but how do we put this all together? So DNA sources typically are viewed only online, but many of the documentary sources we use in our research are digitized original images. So we have to create layered Source Citations showing both the physical information for the source and the digital information. So for instance, if we have a delayed birth certificate that is on family search, we would create the physical information first talking all about what that is, specifically answering the the questions.

Diana (36m 55s):
so I have questions for the physical information and then we would have the digital information next with the same types of answering those five questions. And then sometimes we would use an original microfilm number. So for instance, for a delayed birth certificate, it could read like this, Montague County, Texas delayed birth certificates event date circa 1870 to 1933 entry for Alice Frazier certificate 6 54 18 86 parenthesis 1949 arranged alphabetically. And then we have the semicolon, that’s all the physical information.

Diana (37m 35s):
And then the digital information would be digitized image two 10 of 1926, a family search, the url, the access date, and then another semicolon saying citing DGS film number and the family history library microfilm number. That gives you a really clear picture of exactly what it is that we are citing. And for an index record collection that includes images, we can reference the digital information first and then the physical information. So this one is from Find My Past and it’s a collection titled Ireland Petty Sessions Court Registers entry for Patrick Savage, eight February, 1854 Digital image, find my past the URL access date, and then we have Semicolon and explain where that came from.

Diana (38m 23s):
The Physical Information, county Court, Ireland, Carrie Tray, Lee Petty Sessions, order books, national Archives of Ireland in Dublin. So we can arrange our letter Citations a couple different ways. Physical information first and then digital second or vice versa, that kind of depending on preference and how it, how you’re accessing that.

Nicole (38m 45s):
Great explanation of the different layers in a layered citation. Now let’s talk about citation formats. Depending on what you’re doing, you may have a full reference note, a shortened reference note or a sourceless entry. And the format for each of those is a little different, but the most common format we use is the full reference note. And that would be like a footnote on the bottom of the page. And usually that’s what I will put into my research log too, so that when I’m writing the report, I can just copy and paste it over. Sometimes people will insert a reference note as an end note, but in genealogical writing it’s best to do it on the same page so that the information isn’t separated from the source citation documenting it.

Nicole (39m 30s):
Now if you have several subsequent Citations that are the same as the one you’ve already used, then you can shorten it. And this is usually only done if you have page count restrictions and if you need to provide a source list for the reader at the end of a report or book, that’s where you would have the source list. Entry entries for a source list are different because they don’t tell you like a specific page number or they don’t tell you like the wherein the information is found. It’s just kind of telling you about the source as a whole. And it has different formatting instead of commas to separate the elements. It uses periods and there are not parentheses around the publication information and authors are listed by their last name so that you can do an alphabetical arrangement of the source list.

Nicole (40m 19s):
For an example of how you would do a a source list entry for the genetic Genealogy and practice book, you would take the author’s surname, the first author, Blaine Beninger, and you would put Beninger first, Blaine T and Debbie Parker Wayne. So the second author, you don’t need to put her surname first and then there would be a period instead of a comma. And then you would have the title of the book, genetic Genealogy and Practice in Italics and then a Period. And then you would have the publication place next, but not in parenthesis, Arlington, Virginia, and then the Publisher in National Genealogical Society. And then the year and then another period. so I like to think of the Sourceless entry as kind of like a paragraph, whereas a reference note is like a sentence where each element is separated by a comma and ends with a period.

Diana (41m 10s):
That’s a really good explanation and a good way to think about that. So let’s talk about style standards. And there are many source citation styles in the world of publishing. If you read a journal or a magazine or a book, you might see slightly different ways of presenting the essential citation elements. In Genealogy. We follow the Chicago manual style because it works well for the type of sources we use based on, based on humanities. And Elizabeth Show Mill’s evidence explains adapts those principles from Chicago Manual for a wide variety of genealogical sources. So these are wonderful works for reference, but really remember that the best source we have is our common sense And.

Diana (41m 56s):
so after we create a citation, we can evaluate it for clarity and readability. Always think about someone reading, will they be able to evaluate the evidence by considering the information in the source, especially if it’s privately held and they can’t access it, such as a DNA report. Would someone be able to find the source quickly if it is publicly available? So here are a few style standards to help you as you’re creating your Source Citations. And as I mentioned before, punctuation is so important because it really helps you make sense of things. So here are some basic considerations for punctuation.

Diana (42m 38s):
We want to always italicize the titles of publications. So that would be a book or the blog or a website such as Ancestry or My Heritage. Those are italicized. And then we need to think about not being redundant, trying to streamline our Citations a bit. So the website is often the Publisher and the creator of the reporter or record collection, and we don’t need to cite it twice. We can simply italicize the website and place it before the specific publication information, which would be the url. And that’s set off by parenthesis. If we are quoting the title of a record collection, a chapter in a book, an article or report, we use quotation marks.

Diana (43m 24s):
We separate each element with a comma and we use parenthesis to set off the publication such as place and data publication or the URL and access date. And then if we are citing a physical record viewed online, we use a semicolon to separate the physical information from the digital information in our Laird Citations. Now with dna we are often using living people’s information And, so we anonymize their names or we obtain written permission to include full names of living individuals if we are writing and sharing with anyone besides a client or for ourselves.

Nicole (44m 6s):
Great, well that’s the end of our chapter on Citations. So let’s talk about what the task is that goes along with this chapter. So what we encourage you to do is start creating a list of citation templates and things that you commonly cite and practice writing Citations for a variety of DNA sources. Just remember the five elements, who created the source, what is the source? when was the the source created or accessed? where is the source? And wherein the source is the item of information and it really helps to have some examples in front of you. While you’re doing this, you can look at our book or you can look at evidence explained and get some ideas there.

Nicole (44m 49s):
Good luck.

Diana (44m 50s):
Have a great week everyone. We’ll talk to you next time. Bye-bye

Nicole (44m 54s):
Bye. Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our books, Research Like, a Pro and Research Like a Pro with DNA on amazon.com and other book sellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at FamilyLocket dot com slash services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses to get updates in your email in box each Monday. Subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket dot com slash newsletter. Please Subscribe rate and review our podcast. We read each of you and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.