Lesson Learned: Dates and why we should carefully cite those

Diaries of William Lanning Tucker (1839 - 1929)

I received another notice this weekend from FamilySearch.org that a date had been changed on my G-G-Grandfather William Lanning Tucker. Sigh.

With my Tucker family draft monograph in hand, I went to my FamilySearch Family Tree to see what exactly had been changed.  Another researcher in this family line had changed his birth year from 1839 to 1840. My monograph had his birth date as 19 September 1839. But where exactly did I get that? I have a number of citations, including his granddaughter’s “Black Diaries” and “Information taken from 1830 family bible pages,” but that was more of a general citation for William’s parents, Ezra and Caroline (Lanning) Tucker. I did not have a citation attached to William’s birth date per se.

We have been told that a citation should accompany every date. What a pain! But excellent advice since it saves time later when verifying where the date came from.

So last night I spent time going back through what my Great Grandmother, Jessie (Tucker) Agard had written from the Tucker Family Bible, where she had noted her father’s birth date as 19 September 1839 and then just to make sure I retrieved William Lanning Tucker’s diaries from the archival box.

William Lanning Tucker kept diaries from 1919 through his death in 1929. I picked three years and went to 19 September. On that date for each of the three years I randomly chose, he wrote that it was his birthday and how old he was. That brought the year of his birth back to 1839.

The confusing issue is the 1900 census that states the day and year of birth is clearly 1840.  I changed the date back to 1839 on FamilySearch, stated my sources and also wrote in that the U.S. Census for 1900 states the year 1840.

Is one year’s difference really that important? To me, no, not for that family tree. My monograph will have what I believe is his correct date of birth, and in the footnote I have already mentioned the census discrepancy.

Unfortunately, this is the same family line that was mistakenly merged with New Hampshire people. Hopefully that won’t happen again, but now I know how to reverse the information back.

This time was not wasted. It is good to have someone challenge your information. It makes you go back and double check where your information came from. In the midst of the thrill of the hunt, you (or I particularly) can make mistakes. Typos happen as you sleep, and even when you are awake. This situation also prompted me to pull out William’s diaries again. They are small books, and he doesn’t have much relevant genealogy information, but I realize I need to scan through them all for the hidden gems or births and deaths and other family activities.

Tuesday's Tip - Correctly Citing Newspaper Articles

I am in the process of putting into the correct format all the citations I used in developing the Hardenbrook family monograph.  Although a tedious process, it is one that is well worth the effort. I am finding additional information on family members as well as documentation mistakes.

If I had known then what I know now…I would have saved a lot of time.  One issue I came across this weekend is correctly citing newspaper articles.  According to Elizabeth Shown Mills in Evidence Explained, Second Edition, in citing newspaper articles, put the name of the person in quotation marks at the start of the citation, then state whether it is an obituary, society note, etc., then the publication, date of publication, page, and column number.  When originally citing the articles I didn’t think to include the page and column numbers.

Sometimes the person you are searching is not found.  So you try searching other family members.  Maybe you came across Mary Jones’ maiden name information in an obituary for her husband, John Jones.   The citation would be helpful to other researchers if the citation on Mary’s maiden name was labeled not “Mary Jones,” but “John Jones,” obituary, etc.  And that is where I made a misstep. If I had labeled the citation correctly, I wouldn’t be spending time searching “Mary Jones,” and getting no hits.

  

I just received an email from Amazon asking if I wanted to sell back my copy of Evidence Explained.  Are they nuts???  I keep it close at hand and use it almost every day.  So, no thank you, Amazon. I am quite happy with my purchase. 

Follow Friday - Citing Online Sources

Each morning, while curled up with my coffee, I check the Geneabloggers website [www.geneabloggers.com] to see what’s new, and if there are any items of interest in the daily prompts. Yesterday I read an interview with Elizabeth Shown Mills on the correct way to cite online sources, plus other tidbits of advice on citing bizarre items like wallpaper!

Citing source material is probably one of the hardest and most tedious jobs a researcher has, and citing online information is even more difficult. How many times have we clicked and clicked through a site and finally found a tidbit on our ancestor!! We scurry to jot down the pertinent information, and then click again hoping to find more – completely forgetting to stop and cite.  Well, I have.

I have printed the interview with Elizabeth Shown Mills, as she not only clearly outlines what needs to be cited, but shares examples of how those citations should appear. She explains citations are like layers, and with an online source, you are adding one, if not more, layers.  Doing it correctly the first time through will save you time while allowing others to verify the information you have provided.