{"id":8974,"date":"2019-06-30T03:49:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-30T03:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=8974"},"modified":"2019-06-30T21:08:53","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T21:08:53","slug":"citing-what-it-does-not-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=8974","title":{"rendered":"Citing What It Does Not Say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\n\nThis is part of one of the online trees for a relative of mine. I&#8217;ve eliminated the name and the precise date of birth because I&#8217;m more interested in how Ancestry.com handles citing sources than who this specific individual is whose birth is being cited. I&#8217;ve also seen problems like this countless times so I don&#8217;t want to appear to be picking on this entry only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"616\" height=\"248\" src=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/citing.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8975\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/citing.jpg 616w, https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/citing-300x121.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 616px) 100vw, 616px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve see all six &#8220;sources&#8221; used in this instance. The Ancestry.com tree indicates that all six are sources for the fact that this person was born on a certain date in a certain place. The problem is that all six sources do not say that. Tying these sources to a precise date and place of birth is indicating that they are more accurate than they really are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The 1900 census provides a month and year of birth along with the state.&nbsp;<\/li><li>The 1920 and 1930 census provides an age and a place of birth. The age does not necessarily suggest a specific date&#8211;which this citation seems to indicate that it does.&nbsp;<\/li><li>The death index does provide the date and place of birth.<\/li><li>The U. S. National Home for the Disabled Volunteer Soldiers provides an approximate year of birth and a state of birth.&nbsp;<\/li><li>The World War I draft card provides a county and state of birth along with a date of birth.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Why not just link them all to the precise date and place? After all, that&#8217;s a heck of a lot easier. It may be, but it&#8217;s a heck of a lot less accurate.<br>There&#8217;s only 1 of the six records that provide the specific location and date&#8211;so really only one should be listed as a source with that precise information.&nbsp;<br>Indicating a record says something it does not is confusing and in this case it looks like there are more sources with that level of detail than there are.<br>The date and place for an event when tied to a source for that should only be as precise as that source indicates.<br>Sure it takes a little more work, but it makes our work more accurate and makes analysis easier.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Month and year in Illinois should be tied to 1900 census.<\/li><li>Approximate year and location of Illinois should be tied to the 1930 census and Soldier&#8217;s Home information.<\/li><li> The approximate year and county and \u00a0state should be tied to the draft card. <\/li><li>Specific date and specific place should be tied to the death index.<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is part of one of the online trees for a relative of mine. I&#8217;ve eliminated the name and the precise date of birth because I&#8217;m more interested in how Ancestry.com handles citing sources than who this specific individual is whose birth is being cited. I&#8217;ve also seen problems like this countless times so I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}