Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Crafting a Norway Church Record Digital Image Source Citation in Family Tree Maker 2014

Reader Linda wrote me recently about crafting a source citation for Norwegian Church Record Book digital images in Family Tree Maker 2014, saying:

"I have Family Tree Maker 3 for my Mac, and I have been struggling with how to cite my Norwegian parish records for a long time. I pulled out The Official Guide to Family Tree Maker by Tana L. Pedersen and tried to follow the directions using the church template, but I found it confusing. Having given up until I knew the correct way to cite these, I have just been copying the page headers into the Notes section for my ancestors. After spending a few hours without success yesterday on this issue, I thought I would just search for help, and there you were!!

"The only thing I cannot get to work is inserting the internet address in the source citation. I tried adding it to the end of the Record Series field, but it still didn’t show up. The reference also didn’t add my ancestor’s name until I typed it in under Citation Text.

"So I now have this citation set up for the death of one ancestor. I think I just select it for all the others, since the Source Information stays the same and edit the information on the Source Citation page. Is that right? I see several hours of work ahead, but I have the information in the notes for each person, so I don’t have to search for the them again."


It sounds like Linda is almost there after a struggle to find a source template, and then the source template didn't include what she thought she had entered.  I decided to take a look at it and post it here so that all of my readers and Family Tree Maker users can see how this is done.

I will use the birth entry for Sjur Torgerson (1804-1889) in Tungeteigens, Voss, Hordaland, Norway for this example.  I found the record in the Arkivverket DigitalArkivet Scanned Church Records website some time ago, and reported on it in Finding Norwegian Church Parish Records in DigitalArkivet Website.

1)  In Family Tree Maker 2014, I found Sjur Torgerson in the database, and clicked on him to open his "Individual and Shared Facts" screen:


On the screen above, I wanted to add a Source to the Birth Fact, so I highlighted the Birth Fact and, on the "sources" tab in the right-hand panel, selected "Add New Source Citation" from the "New" field.

2)  That opened the "Add Source Citation ..." screen where I could click the down arrow to the right of the "Source title" tab or I could click on the "New" button:


I decided to click on the "New" button since I knew I did not have an FTM source template already available for this type of source (a digital image of a Norwegian church record in one book of a series of books).

3)  Clicking on the "New" button opened the "Select Source Template" screen, and I selected "Church Records" from the list:


I had to then select from the "Category" drop down menu:


I selected "Image copies" from the list of categories.

Then I had to select from the "Template" list:


I chose "Digitized online" from the Template list.  I think those choices are the appropriate ones for a Church Record image copy that is digitized and provided online.

4)  Having selected the template, I clicked on the "OK" button on the screen above, and was presented with the "Source" template:


I added what I thought were the appropriate information for each of the template fields (although I left some blank):

*  Church/author:  Voss (Vangen) Parish Church
*  Church location:  Voss, Norway
*  Record series:  Voss: 1780-1810, Ministerialbok A9, Births and Baptisms [this is the specific book of records the entry was in]
*  Website title:  Arkivverket DigitalArkivet Scanned Church Records [the web page title]
*  URL:  http://www.arkivverket.no/URN:kb_read
*  Year: [left blank, didn't find it on the website]
*  Comments:  [left blank]

When I finished entering that information, I clicked on the "OK" button and "Add Source Citation..." screen opened on the "Source" tab.  I entered information into the "Citation detail" field:


I entered the following into the "citation detail" field:

Page 221, entry for birth of Sjur Torgerson of Tungeteigens

5)  I clicked on the "Reference Note" tab on the "Add source citation ..." screen and saw the finished source citation for this record.  



The source citation crafted by the Family Tree Maker 2014 source template for "Digitized Online (Church Records, Microfilm)" is:

Voss (Vangen) Parish Church (Voss, Norway), Voss: 1780-1810, Ministerialbok A9, Births and Baptisms, Page 221, entry for birth of Sjur Torgerson of Tungeteigens; digital images, Arkivverket DigitalArkivet Scanned Church Records.

6)  Linda asked:  Where is the URL?  Good question!

*  Linda noted in her email that the URL for the website is not to be found in the source citation.  Even if I put it in the "Web address" field on the "Source" tab screen, it does not appear in the source citation.

I think that this is an oversight on the part of Family Tree Maker - I think they just forgot to include it in the source citation - the field is there, Evidence Explained says to include it, and it isn't included.

I put the URL in the Website title field and it does show up in the source citation as an URL, but italicized, viz:

Voss (Vangen) Parish Church (Voss, Norway), Voss: 1780-1810, Ministerialbok A9, Births and Baptisms, Page 221, entry for birth of Sjur Torgerson of Tungeteigens; digital images, Arkivverket DigitalArkivet Scanned Church Records (http://www.arkivverket.no/URN:kb_read).

*  The above source citation still doesn't have the access date where it should be per Evidence Explained - after the URL and within the parenthesis. I could add it after the URL, and that worked.  

7)  Linda also noted that:

"So I now have this citation set up for the death of one ancestor. I think I just select it for all the others, since the Source Information stays the same and edit the information on the Source Citation page. Is that right?"

*  Yes, that's right.  If you entered it into the Source template as I did above, you will have a source template for each church record book in a series, which means that there will be many different citations for this one church record series because every book will have a different master source citation.  That's the way Evidence Explained says it should be done.

*  Have fun doing all of your source citations - they will look perfect!  And thanks for the question!

8)  Having completed this, I want to post it to answer Linda's questions.  Looking back, I see I did almost the same thing on 21 January 2014 in A Family Tree Maker 2014 Source Citation for Anna Sjursdatter's Death Record.  Oh well!  There is more than one way to craft a source citation!


Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver


6 comments:

Cousin Russ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Cousin Russ said...

Randy,

Awesome !!

On the Web Address, did you have a Check Mark to the Right of the Web Address field?

Russ

Unknown said...

Thank you, Randy! I will give this a try.

On another note, I see that you list name as Sjur Torgerson and birth location as Tungeteigens, Voss, Hordaland, Norway. I am assuming that Tungeteigens is the name of the farm where Sjur was born. I had followed your pattern of patronymic as last name for my ancestors, but then at www.geni.com/projects/Norwegian-Ancestry-information/11383 under Norwgian Naming Practices, p. 2, the directions say to use the farm name at birth as the surname. Hmmm...so many questions.

Unknown said...

I see in this post that you included more specific information in the Source field. In the previous post regarding Sjur you had a more generic source and the specifics were in the citation detail section. Have you changed your mind regarding this? I had an issue with typing the Norwegian letter ø in my Source information that shows up as A with a line above it in the reference note. Should I just type "o" instead of ø and such?

Bernie said...

Well done, Randy. My Source was almost identical to yours but for two differences:
- I added the County (in your example Hordaland) in the Church location line of the Source.
- The URL I included was of the Listing page of the Series (http://www.arkivverket.no/URN:kb_read?idx_id=11769), not the home URL for DigitalArkivet.
My thinking for both of these was to make it easier for someone to check my source citation.

Unknown said...

I am struggling with patronymic names. I see that you list name as Sjur Torgerson and birth location as Tungeteigens, Voss, Hordaland, Norway. I am assuming that Tungeteigens is the name of the farm where Sjur was born. His parents are listed with patronymic surnames, but his son is listed as Torger Sjursen Leland. Do you have a recommendation for when to use farm name surname and when to use patronymic surname? This is making me crazy, because I like to be consistent. Thank you.