Monday, April 16, 2012

1940 U.S. Census Source Citation in RootsMagic 5 - Free-Form Template

I described finding my grandfather, Frederick W. Seaver (1876-1942) in the 1940 U.S. Census in Treasure Chest Thursday - the Seaver 1940 Census Page.  I also summarized the information in the record, and wrote a source citation.

I want to add the information and the source citation to my genealogy management program, currently RootsMagic 5.  

Here is the process I used:

1)  On Frederick Walton Seaver's "Edit Person" page, I clicked the "Add a Fact" button and selected a "Census" Fact:



2)  The Fact type was added to the list, and I entered the Date (1 April 1940), the Place (Leominster, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States) and the Description (90 Main Street) to the data entry fields on the right of the screen:


3) The Fact event was added, and now I want to add a Source for the Fact.  With the 1940 Census Fact highlighted, I clicked on the "Sources" button (on the right, below the entry fields), and clicked on the "Add New Source" button (top left).  The list of Source Types opened, and I selected "Free-form source" (because I'm using Free-form source types for all of my sources.  There are many blog posts about this decision!):


4)  The Free-form source template opened.  This has fields for Footnote, Short footnote, Bibliography, and Source Details.  I typed only "1940 United States Census" in the Footnote box, and copied it to the Short Footnote and Bibliography fields.  I typed in the Citation Detail information (in this case, every but the title of the census).  Then I added some of that to the Bibliography field (because I needed the Ancestry information and the NARA information in the Bibliography).  Here's the completed Free-form source citation template form:


5)  I clicked OK, and the program asked me for a "Master Source" title for my new source - I typed "1940 U.S. Census (Ancestry):"  


6)  After adding information about the Repository (Ancestry.com) and the Quality (I chose Original, Derivative, Indirect), the completed Source citation screen looks like this:



The completed Free-form source citation information (in the lower left-hand panel of the screen:

Footnote: 
1940 United States Census, Worcester County, Massachusetts, population schedule, Leominster: Enumeration District 14-181, Sheet 9-A, Family #202, Frederick Seaver household; online images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 April 2012), citing National Archives Microfilm Publication T627, Roll 1651.
Short Footnote: 
1940 United States Census, Worcester County, Massachusetts, population schedule, Leominster: Enumeration District 14-181, Sheet 9-A, Family #202, Frederick Seaver household; online images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 April 2012), citing National Archives Microfilm Publication T627, Roll 1651.
Bibliography: 
1940 United States Census. Population schedule. Online images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), citing National Archives Microfilm Publication T627.
Repository:
Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com) (Provo, Utah, USA)


This is pretty much the same format that I've used for all of my source citations (tailored to the specific census year, of course).  After doing hundreds of them, I can type the different elements of the citation details from memory, needing only to refer to the Ancestry source citation screen for the details that I cannot immediately recall (or didn't write down).  I was able to complete this New source citation with the details in about two minutes of typing.  I am trying to do all of my census sources in Evidence! Explained format, using the Free-form census template.

Astute source citation observers will note that I am citing the source, and providing the detail from the digital repository, from which I obtained the source citation.  Since I viewed it on, and saved it from, Ancestry.com, I am citing the Ancestry.com website.  However, I am also citing the source for the data where Ancestry obtained it - the National Archives Microfilm Publication T627, plus the microfilm roll number (in the Ancestry.com URL for the specific census page), the place name, the Enumeration District, the Sheet number, the Family number, and the Head of household.  That way anyone reading this source citation should be able to find it if they needed to.  The NARA roll number, ED number, etc. are going to be the same for any digital repository that uses this same NARA microfilm set.

I did this same sort of exercise in:

*  Family Tree Maker 2012:  Creating a 1940 U.S. Census Source Citation in Family Tree Maker 2012

*  Legacy Family Tree 7.5:  1940 U.S. Census Source Citation with Legacy Family Tree 7.5

The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/04/1940-us-census-source-citation-in.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

1 comment:

Nathan said...

Thanks for the great post Randy! I love reading your blog and you are one of those who inspired me to better source my facts.

Totally off the topic of census sources, but i see in the one screenshot you have a Draft Registration fact? I'm curious as to how you use this and how the fact sentence reads.