Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Dear Randy: How Do You Craft a World War Draft Registration Citation

A reader asked this question last week:  "I'm in the process of updating my source citations from Free Form to the appropriate one for the type of source. I wonder what you use for the draft registrations you find?"

My response:  

Asking me about source citations is dangerous!  I use Free-form sources crafted in RootsMagic 5 for almost everything, but I also used the "Draft Registration, Images" template in RootsMagic 5 in order to use as a model for the free-form citation.  (I use free-form because it GEDCOMs better than any template citation.)

Here is the source citation (Footnote) crafted using the "Draft Registration, Image" template in RootsMagic 5:

"U.S. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918," digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 October 2010), Worcester County, Massachusetts, Leominster City, Draft Board 14, Frederick Walton Seaver entry, dated 18 September 1918; citing Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C., National Archives and Records Administration. M1509, 4,582 rolls.

The text in red is in the Source fields, and the text in blue is in the Source Detail fields.

Here is the free-form source citation (red for Source, blue for Details) which I crafted based on the RootsMagic 5 source template:

"U.S. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918," digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com :, accessed 9 October 2010); Frederick Walton Seaver entry, 18 September 1918; ), Worcester County, Massachusetts, Leominster City, Draft Board 14, Frederick Walton Seaver entry, dated 18 September 1918; citing Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C., National Archives and Records Administration. M1509, 4,582 rolls. 

Here is a sample source citation (First Reference Note) from Evidence! Explained:

“World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918,” digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 February 2007), Christopher Ferraci, serial no. 1251, order no. 367, Draft Board 7, Rochester, Monroe County, New York; citing World War I Selective
Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917–1918, NARA microfilm publication M1509; no specific roll cited.

So, I was pretty close with both crafted citations.  I should have included the serial and order numbers on the registration card.  Some differences: I put the county, state and city before the person's name; included the "Selective Service System" creator name; did not italicize the "World War I ..." part in the free-form citation; and there is an extraneous comma before "citing..." in the Free-form citation that I cannot eliminate.  

Now I'm curious how well the source citation templates in Legacy Family Tree 7.5 and Family Tree Maker 2012 perform this task. 

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/10/dear-randy-how-do-you-craft-world-war.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

1 comment:

Beth Benko said...

Here is the citation that I created in LFT.

"U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918," database and images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 Oct 2012), Nicholas Huber, serial no. 2815, order no. 3918, Draft Board 4, Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio; citing United States, Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. M1509, 4,582 rolls. Imaged from Family History Library microfilm.

The text following the word "citing" is copied from the Ancestry.com "Original Data."