Elizabeth M - I cannot tell you what a breath of fresh air this post is to
me. Much of my frustration with my understanding of EE has to do with the
handling of census records. The simplicity I seek is to be able to have one,
and one only, 1900 US census source (which I have done in spite of my belief
that you "assert" otherwise). I say this because my research, as you have
undoubtedly noted from my tag line, is a descendancy project. My grandfather
was the youngest of 42 grandchildren (of the 9th child of the focus couple),
31 of whom lived to produce offspring. He was a great-grandchild of the
couple that is the focus of my research - I haven't stopped to count the
number of their great-grandchildren. The families are found in most western
states and usually more than one county within those states. I can see no
reason to have the multiples of 1900 census sources this number of people
would require should I have a Master Source for even each county where these
families lived. By 1930 the number of families has grown geometrically, as
would the number of sources required if I were to split them by county.
Your caveat regarding different repositories is noted. At this point in time
I rely exclusively on Ancestry for these census records. Yes, I wish the
index to be better, and sometimes I have to be creative to locate a family,
but it is not the index that is the source, rather the online image of the
census. Some earlier work was done in SLC or at NARA and I have paper
copies, and a few families were found with Heritage Quest's 1870 images, but
in most instances I have since gone online to retrieve the digital image, so
am able to accurately cite only Ancestry.
I think the strict construction I observed in Evidence! has been my source
of rebellion. The software I had at the time made it difficult to emulate
that construction, so I recorded as much information as I needed (or thought
I needed), and worried less about format than content. The Legacy basic
source system - so far - has enabled me to write well-formatted sources, but
I freely admit that some of that early stuff lacks enough information to
come up to par. In all aspects, it is a work in progress.
Elizabeth
researching the descendants of William and Sarah (Patterson) Thompson
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <LegacyUserGroup@legacyfamilytree.com>
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 1:44 AM
Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] Master Source Subsequent Citation Issue
Elizabeth R. wrote:
I used that example because ... There was an assertion that ESM showed
differences in the citation. . . . I must admit that I don't have Evidence
Explained so I can't look it up.
Elizabeth, I smiled at this one. You'd never believe how many times my jaw
has dropped off my face at things I've read in one forum or another saying
"ESM asserts ...."
One dear soul (who uses different software) wrote quite a discourse on how
he had used Thistlebottoms's published _Book of Marriages_ (names changed
to protect the guilty), in which he had found 500 marriage records on his
family, and why he had no intention of following ESM's "dictates" on how
to
cite marriage records. According to her, the list was told, he had to
create
a separate Master Source Entry for each of those 500 marriage records in
Thistlebottom. Instead, he had decided to do the logical, simple, thing
and
create one Master Source Entry for Thistlebottom's book and then cite the
specific page number each time he mentioned a marriage from it.
Gee, how could ESM have made such a simple thing so complicated?
After a few exchanges with others on the list, he admitted he had never
read
ESM's little _Evidence!_ . However, others had told him what it said.
(What
he clearly missed, of course, was the point that he was not dealing with
500
original marriage certificates inherited from umpteen branches of his
family--and even if he had, he could have handled them all with one Master
Source Entry for a family collection. In fact, he was not even dealing
with
500 "marriage records." He was dealing with one book that simply had 500
information statements he was interested in.)
And then there's a well-known genealogist in the western states whose
lectures and handouts for the past half-dozen years (including those still
posted online) inform his audiences and readers that _Evidence!_ insists
each time a census is used for a different household, one has to create a
different Master Source Entry.
Sighhhhhh. As with all things genealogical, trusting hearsay and
derivative
sources without checking the original is a good way to be led astray. Even
if the "abstract" we get is correct insofar as the limited detail that is
passed on, the details that are omitted from the "abstract" can make a
tremendous difference in our interpretation and use of that evidence.
Elizabeth
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