DearMYRTLE - Sources -- Individual (in PAF or otherwise)

Providing practical, down-to-earth advice for family historians since 1995, online since 1985.

Sources -- Individual (in PAF or otherwise)

DearREADERS,
On Ancestry's PAF (Personal Ancestral File) message board, located at:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=rw&p=topics.software.paf

Ol' Myrt found the following posting from NRS: "I need to clean up and standardize the way I am entering sources and cannot
decide when to use Individual Sources. Every source for the individual? Only those sources that are not linked to an event? Sources that include more information than the event they are linked to? (I used to use Individual Sources almost exclusively but have been criticized for not having sources linked to events.) Is there a standard practice?"

OL' MYRT'S RESPONSE:
There are several schools of thought here.

-- KEEP SOURCE CITATIONS IN NOTES This concept is appreciated by long-time users of PAF, where earlier versions didn't have the source citation options. The advantage is that one can quickly scan through the list of transcribed documents and bibliographic citations, easily arranging them in chronological order. This method makes it very easy to copy/paste what you have on an ancestor to post on a message board or send via email to another researcher who might be a cousin.

-- UPDATE SOURCE CITATIONS FROM NOW ON. With this plan, users of previous versions of PAF gradually add new sources using the event sources and individual source citation options, even electing to transfer old sources to the newer format.

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THE USUAL REFERENCE WORKS FOR SOURCE CITATIONS INCLUDE:
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-- Mills, Elizabeth Shown. EVIDENCE! Citation & Analysis for Family Historians. (1997, reprint 2006) Genealogical.com ISBN: 0806315431

-- Mills, Elizabeth Shown. QuickSheet: Citing Online Historical Resources. (2005) Genealogical.com ISBN: 0806317612

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FOR FURTHER READING:
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-- Board for Certification of Genealogists. The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual. Genealogical.com (out of print).

-- Silicon Valley PAF Users Group. Family History Documentation Guidelines 2nd edition. http://www.svpafug.org/docguidelines.html

Happy family tree climbing!
Myrt :)

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