Family Historian User Group

I'm a fairly new FH user and still have a lot to learn. I'm trying to pull all my research notes into one place and the more I do this the more I get confused about sources so I hope you will be gently with me and explain things very simply

My main confusion is about having more than one source for an event such as a burial. For instance using the Lancashire On-Line Parish Clerk I found this burial for William Ambrose:

Burial: 21 Jun 1792 St Peter and St Paul, Ormskirk, Lancashire, England
William Ambrose - Son of William Ambrose
Abode: Bick[erstaffe]
Register: Burials 1771 - 1794, Page 78
Source: LDS Film 1849663

I entered this information using Ancestral Sources to create a source called 'Burial of William Ambrose at St Peter and St Paul's Church, Ormskirk, Lancashire on 21 Jun 1792' with the repository Lancashire On-Line Parish Clerk.

However, I have also found an image of the same burial register entry on Ancestry which I think qualifies it to be a different source. If that is correct, what title do I give this source? And what is the repository? Is it Ancestry? Or Lancashire County Council?

What if I find I have made my own transcription of the burial register from a FamilySearch microfilm at some time? Is that a third source? What is the repository for that source? Or am I overthinking the whole issue? Should I record only one source for this information, using the most authentic information?

The more I think about this this more confused I get. I'll be grateful for all points of view. Thank you.

Catherine

Hi Catherine,
You say you will be 'grateful for all points of view' so you are probably already aware that there are no absolutely fixed rules about issues like this and you may find different people making different recommendations!

Personally if I obtain an image of the actual parish register for an event I regard that as the only primary source. You may find many transcriptions of the information on different websites but that only shows that several people have looked at the same image (or paper page). Six transcriptions of the same page don't make six independent sources.
In the example you give, I would attach the image to the source you have already created. Assuming the original register is held by Lancashire County Council I would keep that as the Repository, and enter Ancestry.co.uk in the 'Publication Information' field, so that you know where you found the image. (I know that some people prefer to regard Ancestry as the Repository, but my own view is that it is merely 'publishing' an image of the source, which is a piece of paper. A piece of paper can only be in one place, in this case in the Lancashire County Council office.) If you find discrepancies between various transcriptions and you think there is reasonable room for doubt about what the original says, you can record these alternatives in the note field of the Source record, or the note field of the burial fact.

Whatever approach you decide to take the important thing is to be consistent, so that it would be easy for another researcher to look at your work and understand where you got the information from.

I agree with Lorna, you need to consider carefully whether Sources are truly independent or just copies of the same original document.
The cases you quoted are effectively copies of the same Source, so by all means include Notes of where those copies exist, but there should only be one Source Record.

Alternatively, if you have say a GRO Birth Certificate and a Parish Register Baptism Record that gives the birth details, then they are two independent Sources.

Catherine, how did you use Ancestral Sources to create Burial Records when that feature is not available yet?

Yes, people like myself can get hours of innocent fun and amusement tangling ourselves up in questions like these... Won't get any work done but...

I'll try to give you a couple of principles:

• If you have two or more copies of the same source, you only need record one;
• To decide which one, use the one that is closest to the original;
• Beware there are all sorts of ways of making "copies". Digital images and transcriptions have different value to the family historian since a digital image is normally "exact" while a transcript might contain errors;

The Americans use the term "derivative" rather than "copy", perhaps because "derivative" includes transcripts, abstracts, summaries, etc., whereas "copy" can be taken to imply "exact copy".

So taking the LancsOPC version and the image on Ancestry.... Both are derivatives of the original, which is the parish register. Ancestry's derivative is a digital image of a microfilm of the PR. LancsOPC is a transcript of a microfilm of the PR (that's why it says "Source: LDS Film ...") Which is the closest to the original? Because a transcript can contain errors, while microfilming and digitisation shouldn't, then I would say, use the Ancestry version.

If you've already entered the LancsOPC version then you can either alter it so it's referring to the Ancestry version instead or just put a note in the source-record saying that you've checked it and the transcript is OK. Either way, you only need one.

If you made your own transcript from a microfilm ages ago, then your source was the microfilm, and it's as good as the original PR, so there's no point in altering that or adding a new source-record.

As for Repositories.... Well, this can get a bit weird. I started out getting copies of BMD certificates and recording the Repository as "Me" because that's where the certificates are. But that's a bit of a nonsense. The Repository is best used to tell other people where to get a copy of the source or where to see the source. So "Me" isn't very helpful. One good tip is - don't duplicate data in your source record. I tend to say that digital images have a publisher of Ancestry / FMP / FamilySearch / etc. - in that case there is no need to repeat myself and say that the repository is the same. I could just leave it blank and frequently do if I've already said all I need to say in the publication details.

So, I'd probably leave the Repository blank for all three of those on the basis that:

• Any LancsOPC source-record would say "Published on LancsOPS web-site, accessed dd/mm/yy citing LDS Film 12345 of original parish register";
• An Ancestry source-record would say "Published in 'xxxxx Collection' on LancsOPS web-site, accessed dd/mm/yy, citing original PRs from Lancashire RO";
• Any microfilm source-record would say "Published on microfilm by FamilySearch, citing original PR reference ....."

Something like that....

Adrian Bruce wrote:Yes, people like myself can get hours of innocent fun and amusement tangling ourselves up in questions like these... Won't get any work done but...

Hours? More like days!

AdrianBruce wrote: a transcript can contain errors, while microfilming and digitisation shouldn't,

Not all microfilms or digital images are equal. The filming/imaging can be done poorly, leaving parts of the image illegible that might be clear on other supposedly equivalent images. And a file or image series can miss something -- skip over a page in a parish register, for example. So (IMO) the original as viewed by yourself directly (if possible) is a better source than a supposedly-identical image. And if I do use an image (as we all very frequently have to) I'm careful to record exactly which image it was I used -- which usually means which website or archive provided it.

(As an aside, digital images do have some advantages -- sometimes reversing black-and-white makes them more legiblethan the originals).

When it comes to Repository there are many interpretations.
The GEDCOM Specification says:

This structure is used within a source record to point to a name and address record of the holder of the source document. Formal and informal repository name and addresses are stored in the REPOSITORY_RECORD. Informal repositories include owner's of an unpublished work or of a rare published source, or a keeper of personal collections. An example would be the owner of a family Bible containing unpublished family genealogical entries. More formal repositories, such as the Family History Library, should show a call number of the source at that repository. The call number of that source should be recorded using a subordinate CALN tag. Systems which do not structure a repository name and address interface should store the information about where the source record is stored in the NOTE_STRUCTURE of this structure.

For example a GRO BMD Certificate should be the GRO at Kew, whereas a Church Parish Register should perhaps be wherever that original register is archived.

tatewise wrote:For example a GRO BMD Certificate should be the GRO at Kew, whereas a Church Parish Register should perhaps be wherever that original register is archived.

Being pedantic, a GRO BMD certificate should be the GRO at Southport. Kew is The National Archives.

ColeValleyGirl wrote:... Not all microfilms or digital images are equal. The filming / imaging can be done poorly, leaving parts of the image illegible that might be clear on other supposedly equivalent images ... I'm careful to record exactly which image it was I used -- which usually means which website or archive provided it.

Yes - I did wonder whether to say the sort of thing you just did (correctly), but in the end contented myself with "shouldn't" contain errors. The simple fact is that all derivatives are questionable to some degree - though faded images are usually more obvious than transcription errors. You just have to apply some thought to wondering which mechanism is least likely to cause issues.

And then there are the errors in the originals! (But let's not put the Original Poster off too much!)

ColeValleyGirl wrote:(As an aside, digital images do have some advantages -- sometimes reversing black-and-white makes them more legible than the originals).

Does that trick work for you? It just looks so weird to me that I can never get any advantage!

AdrianBruce wrote:Does that trick work for you? It just looks so weird to me that I can never get any advantage!

It's one of the things I routinely try with a poor image, that and turning grey-scale into black-and-white. Or scaling the image up really far, printing out the word or letter or interest and then tracing it with pencil to try to make sense of it.

And now we're drifting really far off topic, so I'll stop.... here, anyway.

Catherine wrote: I entered this information using Ancestral Sources to create a source called 'Burial of William Ambrose at St Peter and St Paul's Church, Ormskirk, Lancashire on 21 Jun 1792' with the repository Lancashire On-Line Parish Clerk.

I know Tatewise has already asked this, but I don't understand how you've used Ancestral Sources to add burial entries. Entry of burial records is only available in the beta version that is being tested currently and, as far as I know, you're not one of the beta testers?

Thank you to everyone who has taken the trouble to reply. First of all, I must apologise for causing more confusion! (obviously I was even more confused than I thought ) I didn't actually use AS to create a burial entry; rather I used it to create some baptisms and marriages and then copied the form of words when creating a source for a burial in FH so that I had a consistent approach and in the hope that I won't need to recreate my burial sources when burials become available through AS. I do apologise for making my query more difficult than it needed to be.

After reading your responses, it seems much more straightforward now. I think I need to create a primary source when I acquire an image of the actual parish register. If my source is from a transcription, it is a secondary source and should be replaced by the primary source as and when possible. In this case, I record Lan-OPC, Ancestry etc. in the Publication Information field and location of the actual source e.g. Lancashire Records Office in the Repository. I have been recording the date of access in the Note field. I've played with a few dummy sources and it seems to meet my needs so I'm happy that I'm on the right lines now. Thank you all for helping clarify this

Catherine