Tuesday's Tip - Use the Source Citation Guide from St. Louis Genealogical Society

This week's Tuesday's Tip is to:  Use the Guide to Providing Proper Source Citations provided by the St. Louis Genealogical Society.

Readers can download a free 45 page manual in PDF format on "How to Cite St. Louis and Missouri Sources" from the website.

There are also web pages for some specific record types, including:

• Cemetery Records
• Census Records
• Court Records
• Funeral Home Records
• Home and Personal Records
• Hospital Records
• Land Records
• Military Records
• Naturalization Records
• Newspaper Records
• Probate Records
• Religious Records
• Vital Records

Here is a screen shot of the top of the "Vital Records" page on the website (2 screens):

For each record type listed, a "First Footnote or Endnote," "Subsequent Footnote or Endnote," and "Bibliography" are provided.  In addition to the template information, an example pertinent to St. Louis or Missouri research is provided.

The templates are, as best I can tell, directly from Elizabeth Shown Mills' book, Evidence Explained.
How should a researcher use these templates and the examples?  I recommend substituting your own information for the specific record type provided.  For example, the Footnote for the first one on the Vital Records list above is:

Missouri Department of Health, certificate of birth number 9238 (8 August 1911), Elmer Albert Fagyal, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Jefferson City.

For a birth certificate in, say, California, I would edit the citation above, substituting information from or about the record, to read:

State of California Department of Public Health, certificate of live birth number 43-144396 (23 October 1943), Randall Jeffrey Seaver, San Diego County Clerk/Recorder's Office, San Diego, California.

These source citation examples are clear, easy to use, and the PDF enables users to print out a relatively short book and use it on the desk, or have it available on a laptop or tablet at a repository.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/01/tuesdays-tip-use-source-citation-guide.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver