My sources have always been the answer to "Where did you find this 'fact'". This is usually an online "collection" but could be a microfilm at a county archive or even a physical document such as a parish register.
Various sources have various reliabilities. Some are mere transcripts (full or partial) and you have to accept/hope that the transcription is accurate and that the digitalising process has not "assumed" more information. (The actual source may say "Carlisle", but the digitalisation process sometimes takes a National-centric view and automatically adds "PA, USA"!). Those that have images allow you to check the transcription and to transcribe un-transcribed information (such as Census Occupations). Those that are pure images rely on your own transcription. It is to reflect these differences that I have used the "type".
I have a suspicion that this is not the "normal" use!
According to the how_to:about:version_2.3#enhancements_to_sources|> 4. Enhancements to Sources Source Types were introduced with FH 2.3.5. (Long long ago) "There is now a new Type field for sources, which allows you to specify, for each source record, what kind of source it is." Which is what I thought I was doing.
Others I suspect relegate this sort of information to the source note field - which is fine if you are a source lumper like me, but a bit tedious and repetitious if you are a source splitter.
Would I be right in thinking that source splitters would, say for an 1850 US census event, record the full citation ("1850 US Census, Amwell, Hunterdon, New Jersey, United States, pXYZ") as the source and possibly use the "type" field to hold "Census" or "1850 Census"? If so where (if?) would you hold the sort of type information that I detail above - there is no "Source Type | Note" field - and you cannot add it through the Sources "All" tab. Is it not seen as important?
I have found this particularly important when dealing with Parish Records where the "type" can be
- The Actual Parish Record
- The Actual Bishops Transcript
- Microfilm of the Parish Record
- An online transcription of the Parish Record
- An online transcription of the Bishops Transcript masquerading as the Parish Record
- An online transcription with images of either the Parish Record or of the Bishops Transcript
What do others do?