4.3 Documenting Research

Professional Genealogy suggests three books to use as guides in creating solid citations: The Chicago Manual of Style, Evidence Explained, and Genealogy Standards.1 One goal of this course is for students to have a positive, personalized experience while learning to improve their research skills; therefore, in an attempt to keep citations from becoming a barrier to that goal, citations will be presented in three styles throughout this textbook. Whichever style is utilized, each citation should be created in that style for all coursework. Sample citations for different record types will be displayed in each of the three styles within the coordinating chapter. Utilizing the ctrl-f “find” function and searching for the record type will quickly bring up citation style samples.

The first, and most accessible, citation style is Chicago Style. Since family history falls under the umbrella of history, it is reasonable to use history citations in genealogy. Be aware that some documents cited in family history may not be specifically addressed in The Chicago Manual of Style, but there are many websites, helps, and guides to assist students in creating Chicago Style citations. Often universities have websites or subscribe to services that demonstrate Chicago Style citations. History departments may also have physical resources or helpful books, like A Pocket Guide to Writing in History,2 with samples of Chicago Style citations for different types of sources.

Second, to address the concern that certain types of citations are not always clearly defined in Chicago Style, professional genealogists use methods developed by Elizabeth Shown Mills and outlined in her work Evidence Explained to cite records commonly utilized in family history research. “Evidence Explained is the go-to guide for all who explore the past, guiding users through the maze of materials not covered by other citation manuals.”3 This citation style will be referenced as Evidence Explained Style. Citations created following Evidence Explained Style are complex and thorough. Mills claims that “Evidence Explained is a guidebook for all who explore history and seek to piece together its surviving bits and shards. As a guide, it is built on one basic thought: We cannot judge the reliability of any information unless we know exactly where the information came from; and the strengths and weaknesses of that source.”4

Citations created following Chicago Style or Evidence Explained Style will do two things: provide enough information that someone could find the original source based on the citation and give the researcher patterns to follow in creating consistent citations. However, because family history is a discipline that relies heavily on emerging technologies, some argue that it is time to modernize citations. The history of Chicago Style goes back to the late nineteenth century and the creation of the Chicago University Press, which developed a pamphlet in 1903 that evolved into a book released in 1906 as Manual of Style: Being a compilation of the typographical rules in force at the University of Chicago Press, to which are appended specimens of type in use.5 The manual is, as of January 2025, in its 18th edition.6 Evidence Explained was first printed in 20077 at a time when the methods genealogists utilized to access records leaned to the physical instead of being electronic. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, it was common for researchers to utilize microfilm and other physical resources that, over time, have been digitized and are available electronically for modern researchers.

Both Chicago and Evidence Explained Styles recommend elements within citations that may not be necessary to meet the criteria. For example, both of these methods require the researcher to include full urls within the citation; besides the fact that a url can be gangly, complex, and unattractive, the time researchers spend typing or copying things like “https://www...” may be better spent in research. It is easy for historians to embed links within the citation text without readers being offended at the sight of them. Incorporating a url within the citation may also be fruitless because researchers may access records through paid memberships, student accounts, library services, or other methods that cannot be reproduced by the general public. By embedding the link, the information is still available to a researcher who can use it, but it is not written out in full text, taking space and making the citation difficult to manage. The text of the citation, without the url, should be effective in leading other family historians to the source but an embedded link is a bonus for easy access for those who can use it. Additionally, when adding sources to FamilySearch.org, there is a data field specifically for url so the entire text of the url does not need to be repeated in the citation.

A third citation style will be referred to as Sensible Citation Style and is an effort to overcome some of these complexities while still creating excellent citations and allowing for as much time as possible to be spent on other aspects of a project. Crafting citations is vital to family history, but it should not be an activity that causes angst or takes an unnecessary amount of time away from research and writing. Sensible Citation Style follows Chicago Style whenever possible but is customizable for each student; this is important because all the vital parts of the citation needed to find the source are necessary, but they can be arranged in a way that makes sense to that researcher. This encourages consistency in the organization of saved documents and files. The key elements of a Sensible Citation Style citation include the following:

• Collection

• Primary name/names documented in the record

• Type of event

• Date of event

• Place of event

• Repository

• Scope of collection (indexes, images, etc.)

• Indentifying information (such as page number, line number, image number, etc.)

• Embedded link (when possibile and appropriate)

• Access date

Information that is vital for others to quickly find the source should be included, but the order in which they are presented is left to the individual researcher. Once a genealogist chooses the order of the essential elements, this same order must be followed consistently throughout the project.

As previously noted, there are sample citations presented throughout the textbook, and they are shown in each of the three citation styles. Here is a sample of a book citation shown in Chicago Style, Evidence Explained Style, and Sensible Citation Style.