Questions that include the word “always” are often easy to answer as the answer is often a clear “no” and occasionally a clear “yes.”
Questions that don’t include the word “always” are a little more difficult t answer.
The question “should I cite a census for the birth?” really depends on the situation.
If the person was born in St. Louis in the 1860s and there is a church record of his infant baptism that indicated a date of birth of 1 August 1862, that is what I would cite. The record was relatively contemporary to the birth and would be more reliable than census records. Of course I do want to access the census records, but in this situation the census is best used to answer questions regarding the person’s residence at the time of the census, his occupation, others living in his household, etc.
If his cousin was born in Kansas at about the same time and has no baptismal record, then those census enumerations with her age become more crucial–because I don’t have any contemporary information for her birth. The census may be incorrect, but if they are all I have, then they are all I have. I may even use the census records to provide a range of possible years of birth if the records are not precisely consistent.
We may locate as many records on an individual as we can, but we realize that not all records are equally detailed or accurate. We choose the most reliable records we have (considering the perceived accuracy of each record) when trying to determine a “fact” and creating a citation for that fact. If we use several sources and some of our own analysis to reach a conclusion about a fact, then all our sources should be cited for that fact. I’d also add that our analysis needs to be included as well.
I have numerous sources that directly state my ancestor’s date of birth in Ostfriesland, Germany in 1862. I have other sources that provide a year in which she was born. I do not cite all of those as sources of her birth. Might does not make right.I use the church christening record for her which gives her date of birth as that’s the source I perceive to be the most reliable. The marriage record gives her age, but I use it to cite the marriage date. Various censuses give her age, but I use those to cite her residence at those points in time. Her death certificate gives her precise date of birth, but I cite it for her death date.
Another ancestor was born in the early 1840s in Ontario, Canada. There is no contemporary record of his birth. All I have are ages from census records, ages from insanity court files, and his age at death. All are relatively consistent and all only give an age. I cite all for his “age,” and in the notes include a discussion of those records. I don’t cite just one because none is really more accurate than the other and the body of all the records points to a consistency which I feel is important. Might does not always make right, but in this situation I’m left with going with what the majority indicate.
It depends.
Research is an art. Not because we create fiction, but we judiciously select information from carefully chosen records and then create a consistent narrative from those records.
3 Responses
So, do you consider a single citation as accurate? I usually try to use more than one as supporting evidence.
What I meant was “a single citation as adequate.”
It really would depend upon the situation. For a birth in 1930 where I have a copy of the birth certificate as evidence of the date of birth, then yes–unless it’s a delayed certificate or I have some valid reason to believe the information about the date of birth could be incorrect. For a date of birth in 1830 that I’m using a death certificate as the source for then I’d prefer to get additional information that either gave that same date of birth or was consistent with it. It really depends upon whether I have a record contemporary to the event with information regarding that event provided by someone who reasonably had first hand knowledge of that event.