Some basic rules for citing your sources in family history writing

There are lots of websites to help with citing your sources today but they do require some idea of what it is you are doing (similarly when you use the cite button for TROVE  http://trove.nla.gov.au/or on other library or archives websites)…these websites and other aids such as easybib.com   can help you to cite many of the sources (digital and otherwise) that we use as family historians.  However, it is also relatively easy, by following a few basic rules, to sort this out yourself:

The basic rules for citing your sources:

1.        Be consistent. Whatever format you choose to use stay with it.

2.       Ensure you have sufficient information so that the reader/following research or historian can find that source again.

3.       Minimal capitalization is the order of the day.

4.       Punctuation, as little as possible.

Why you should cite your sources:

1.       To avoid plagiarism and acknowledge other writers/publishers work.

2.       To meet your obligations as a historian (that is, whether the work you cite is in or out of copyright, you cite the source so as to acknowledge that someone else, a previous researcher/writer,  wrote this text that you are citing).

There are two basic styles for referencing:

1.       Humanities style (sometimes referred to as documentary note system) this method is widely used by historians and consists of footnotes collected at the bottom of each page or endnotes collected at the end of a chapter or at the end of a book. 

2.       APA (American Psychological Association Style), the APA style uses the in-text author-date citation method and is also referred to as the Harvard author-date system.

You can see examples of all of these rules, conventions and styles online at the following:

Chicago Manual of Style online at:  www.chicagomanualofstyle.org

Garbl’s Editoral Style Manual developed by Gary B Larson see at: home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/betwrit.htm

Plagiarism in a digital age:   www.plagiarism.org

Style Manual for authors, editors and printers, John Wiley & Sons/Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2002 (this is the editing, citing and publishing guide for Australians and is available in the reference section of every public and university library in Australia).

My small book Citing historical sources: a manual for family historians covers all of the above and move and distils this information down to a readable and useful guide, you can buy it for $12 from Gould Genealogy at:

http://www.gould.com.au/Citing-Historical-Sources-A-Manual-for-FH-p/utp0322.htm

It’s never too late to become a writer: Yvonne Hammonds story of living with her husband Don’s dementia

Yvonne Hammond is a student who participant in a writing family history group I facilitated in the Northern Rivers in the 2000s…she was then in her 80s and said that writing the stories of her life and her family had become one of  the most joyful  acts of her life.  Yvonne became a friend and over the years since we have met and corresponded and talked about writing, life, love and the universe…….In my 2007 book Writing Family History Made Very Easy  I have an excerpt from Yvonne’s story of her mother titled ‘Cradle to the Grave’ (pp.12-13), as an example of a strong imaginative framework and  good use of dialogue Yvonne uses  in the re-creating of the conversations of her childhood and youth all done  with a lightness, deftness and skill rarely found in most family history.  

Yvonne was 83 when she wrote that story.  Now at age 91 Yvonne has written a personal story of her experiences caring for her husband Don from the onset of his dementia in 2002 until he passed away aged 91 in 2012. In that time Yvonne also dealt with several major operations herself including a serious fall and broken bones just after losing Don necessitating a long stint in hospital and then rehabilitation. But in all that time Yvonne showed courage and humour as well as real  toughness in dealing  with whatever came her way.

In her writing of The Challenging Journey (her story of Don and her and a journey of love, compassion and much else) there is humour, irony, poignancy and a wonderful sense of love and the frailty of the human condition.  And there is compassion and caring. 

You can read an interview of Yvonne Hammond in the Ballina Shire Advocate as follows:

 

 

 

Article from Ballina Shire Advocate 5 Feb 2014 Yvonne Hammond talking about her book

Permission to publish citing your sources for the family historian

Having returned home after the 4th Unlock the Past Cruise, here are a few updates to add to  my talk on Citation and Copyright.
 
Copyright is a complex issue.  You will find good information on the following sites:

e www.plagiarism.org

Style manuals and writing guides

e www.calstatela.edu/library/styleman.htm for a useful list of online and published guides

•Another website (US based) on Permission to publish can be found at :

http://www.wiley.com/legacy/authors/guidelines/stmguides/3frames.htm

 

This is a website from the publisher Wiley and is an excellent summary of the main issues facing authors.

For Australian authors see the information sheets at:

http://www.copyright.org.au/find-an-answer/   

This website covers permission and copyright for Australian authors together with many other associated issues.

 To ensure that you acknowledge other people's work adequately and accurately:

1.  Acknowledge other people work, either with a reference (footnote/endnote) or if using a verbatim quote (more than 250/300 words) by obtaining permission.

2. Include sufficient and accurate information to enable other researchers/readers to find document.

********In addition, if I was quoting an aspect of a historical     debate or from a number of authors on a particular issue I would acknowledge their work whether their books/articles/newspaper reports were in copyright or not...as a historian I feel obliged to acknowledge the writing of history that has preceded mine. Therefore I would add that the following is also important:

3. I acknowledge all works (in copyright or not)  so as to meet my obligations as an historian and ensure that following historians can make use of my research and find the information that I have relied on in my publication.

If a work is no longer in copyright you can use it without permission, however see the above websites and notes  as it may not be clear as to whether a work is out of copyright, has been reprinted and is now once again in copyright or has some other legal aspect attached to it so that it is in copyright.

 

 

My book Citing historical sources; a manual for family historians, is available from:

http://www.writingfamilyhistory.com.au/New%20books%20Unlock%20the%20Past.htm

 

 

 

 

Copyright Laws and the family historian: dealing with all those images

There is a great article on Australian copyright and the photographer, see at:

NSW Photorights  http://photorights.4020.net
by Andrew Nemeth a solicitor

see also  information sheets at the artslaw website:

www.artslaw.com.au/info-sheets/

also   www.copyright.com.au

Who were our female immigrants (convict and free) and how do we write their stories once they step ashore?

Who were our female immigrants (convict and free) and how do we write their stories once they step ashore?

This is the topic of my first talk on the 4th Unlock the Past Cruise (our first day at sea, hopefully after a good nights sleep Tuesday night)...on Wednesday at 3.30pm, check your program for the venue.  Here is a summary of my talk:

The forced and voluntary emigration of women to Australian began with the first fleet. Unassisted and assisted female emigrants arrived in Australia as wives, daughters and mothers, mostly within a family group. While still under sentence convict women can be traced via marriage applications, assignment registers, conditional pardon lists, convict indents, and tickets-of-leave. Immigration records can provide a starting point for researching women as they faced the rigours of living and working in a new land. It is when they were freed and able to marry, travel interstate and re-locate elsewhere, that research becomes more difficult. Using the sources and resources from her book Finding Florence, Maude, Matilda, Rose: Researching and Writing about women in family history (Unlock the Past) Noeline will provide insights, understandings, resources and some questions you might ask to better track the lives of women and children as they leave their place of origin, sail across the seas and then step ashore to disappear into the bush, the family and far flung communities.  Noeline will draw on her many years as a historian of women and the family history to outline some basic techniques for finding the stories of women in this very early period of Australian colonial history.

This is the first of two talks I will be presenting on researching and writing women into family history.  The second talk titled:

Haven in a heartless world! Researching and writing about the family, women and children

will be presented on the last day of our cruise, on Friday 12th at 4.30pm as we sail back up the coast towards Sydney after a glorious visit to Hobart and environs.

A summary of this talk:

The family has been called a ‘haven in a heartless world’ but it is also much more than that; it is the place where women and children are located, where we find them as we go about our family history research . Using the sources and resources from her book Finding Florence, Maude, Matilda, Rose: Researching and Writing about women in family history (Unlock the Past) Noeline will guide you through the range of strategies useful for researching and then writing about the women and children in your family. Thinking about and understanding relationships between men and women, husbands and wives, and parents and children  will help you research and write and place your female characters more precisely in their historical and social contexts. Many of you will want to write about one female ancestor, perhaps to highlight her story within the final family history. The primary aim of this talk is to help you do just that.

I know that many genies do want to research and write more fully about their female ancestors so come along and take part.

See you there.

Citing sources in family history

Family historians are more professional today in all aspects of writing and publishing their family histories.  As a judge for the Queensland Family History Society's competition since the 1990s, for the best published  family history (with a substantial Qld content), I have seen much improvement and certainly more interest in producing well written and presented work.

But there is one aspect that continues to be an issue:  how we cite our sources.  In too many case I find the family historian simply does not cite their sources at all.  Others include some certificates and/or other material verbatim in the text but rarely have a caption or note as to its source.  And there are the few who do cite their sources carefully in footnotes but then forget to acknowledge or place captions on the many splendid images in the text.

There is much to inform the family historian today re citation of sources both on the internet and in useful books such as those written by Elizabeth Shown Mills and of course the Australian text (available in all public, regional and university libraries)see following:

Style Manual for authors, editors and printers, revised by Snooks & Co,John Wiley & Sons Australia, Sixth Edition, 2006.

There are, too, many smaller books that take the reader through the various rules and conventions in a simplified and easy way, for example, see Richard Lackey, Cite your sources: a manual for documenting family histories and genealogical records, University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi, 1980, and my latest book:
Noeline Kyle Citing historical sources; a manual for family historians, Unlock the Past, St Agnes, SA, 2013.

If you are planning to be on the 4th Unlock the Past Cruise leaving Sydney next week, do come and talk to me about these aspects of writing or to ask other questions.  I will be in the Research Zone often and I am happy to meet and talk to you at any time during my talks or afterwards.  I will look forward to meeting you, a summary of my talks is at:

http://www.unlockthepastcruises.com/presentations/


Looking forward to catching up.

Latest post from the Unlock the Past Team 4th UTP Genealogy 9 day Cruise

With just six days to go I'm sure most of you have almost finished packing and preparing generally. If so you are well ahead of us. With this final cruise newsletter we have pulled together information on special sessions on the cruise and have prepared a handy FAQ sheet – see attached. You might also like to check out Pauleen Cass's excellent blog post Packing for the 4th UTP geneacruise .

Final program

Please bring the program that was supplied with your ticket. Only minor changes have been made since then. The final version can be downloaded from the program page of the website but these are the main changes:

• the 4:30/5 PM sessions on Wednesday, 5 February have been swapped with the 4:30 PM session on Friday, 7 February
• Jill Ball's Ethical dilemmas panel on Wednesday, 12 February has been swapped with Kerry Farmer's DNA talk on Monday, 10 February
• a few talks in the same time slot have switched rooms to better suit the numbers expected. Check the program to be sure you have the right room.
• the considerable interest in the special getting to know the Southern sky sessions means we will likely need to run two or more of these, weather permitting and if Mel is prepared to do the extras

Check the speaker biographies and presentation outlines to help you plan ahead. Outlines for all presentations are no online.

Special sessions - BE PREPARED

Anne Daniels – Anne brings something very special to our cruise. As well as presenting Anne is offering discounts on specially commissioned "family history heirlooms". But to take advantage of this you need to be prepared. I recommend you look at her website to learn more about her work – and just in case you would like to go further why not bring along a few photos and documents. And don't forget to attend Anne's presentations on the cruise. Anne writes:

To anyone who is considering commissioning a ‘family history heirloom’ artwork from drawingonthepast.co.uk

I’m really looking forward to meeting you all and maybe getting to know you a little bit. As well as taking a couple of design-based workshops on board, I will be available to accept commissions from any of you who would like a bespoke artwork from ‘Drawing  on the Past’, at a specially discounted price. I will be offering a 20% discount on my online prices, which you will find by looking on http://drawingonthepast.co.uk. Please check out the ‘Family History’ section of the website, and maybe read some of the testimonials, so that you can get a basic idea of how the process works. If anyone is interested, but has questions, please get in touch via my website or email me on annedaniels.design@gmail.com

For anyone who is interested in this service, please could I ask you to bring any personal photographs and documents with you on the cruise. As well as being able to scan these into my laptop on the ship, we will be able to sit down and have a chat together, to gather interesting information about your life, which I will use to enrich your artwork. I will be able to begin your artwork on the ship, so you will be able to see its development right up to the point we disembark. By that point, I will have taken all of the details I need to be able to have your final piece printed and posted out to you once I’m back on terra firma.

Scrapbooking workshop with Maggie Clarke – if you are attending Maggie's scrapbooking workshop she has asked that you bring a paper trimmer or pair of scissors, an adhesive runner (she will supply a glue stick for everyone), a 7"x5" photo in portrait and a document that goes with the photo. (Maggie's sample page has her grandmother's wedding photo and her marriage certificate... just to give you an idea of what you need). If people are scrapbookers they could also bring a stamp pad in brown but this is not essential. If anyone has any questions they can email Maggie on mka@netspace.net.au. Be aware that Royal Caribbean list as prohibited – sharp objects including all knives and scissors with the blade length of 4 inches or more. Also our own experience – our case was held up in security last year because they detected scissors. They did not confiscate them but our case delivery was somewhat delayed while this was checked out. Numbers will be limited to 25 maximum.

Getting to know the southern sky with Mel Hulbert – this may not be a genealogical topic but it has certainly attracted a lot of interest if the topics survey is anything to go by. Well we'll give a brief introductory talk (10 mins) followed by a viewing and guided tour of the southern sky. Any who are interested should bring a small torch with red cellophane covering it (using an elastic band works best) and binoculars if you have them. We will choose suitable night/s on the cruise - the time will be after our own program is over for the day. More than 50% of our survey respondents have indicated interest in this so it looks like we may need to run this two or more nights if Mel is willing and the weather permits. Mel has prepared a night sky map for us. A copy is attached for those who are interested. You should print this out to bring with you.

iPad productivity workshop for genealogists – this workshop by Neil Grill will be limited to 25 maximum. Neil will tell how to use it to boost productivity, assist research, access genealogy applications and work seamlessly across several devices. This is a hands-on workshop and participants are expected to bring their own Apple iPad (or iPad Mini or iPhone). A private WiFi network will be provided for participants to join and exchange data, ideas and ask questions.

Note: if numbers for any of the workshops are more than the 25 limit, priority will be given to those who submitted interest in the topics survey.

Other notes

• book sales – whilst most purchases on Voyager are made in US dollars on your sea pass card any purchases from our bookshop or other speakers selling books will need to be in Australian dollars. Cash is preferred as internet access for credit card processing is limited at sea. If necessary we can probably process credit cards when we are in port.
• research interests – a list of these will be displayed on board.
• shore activities – we put a list of ideas that may interest our group when in ports - in the itinerary page of the web site. Please note that these were for your information only – we are not organising groups to these activities. We were simply gauging interest and are quite happy to bring together those interested in the same activity to travel together on public transport where available or as a group sharing a taxi. Generally this will be worked out on the cruise, probably the day before we arrive at each port.
• Lutheran archives – this is not open on Saturday when we are in Adelaide, but they have agreed to open for a while if there are sufficient numbers interested for them to do so. There has been some interest expressed but not enough at this stage to ask them for a special opening. If you are likely to be interested in this can you please do the short survey we have on shore activities (we will leave this open) – or email us directly with your interest. It will probably be offered from about 10 AM to 1 PM. The archives holds records for Lutheran interests throughout Australia including indexed parish registers, a large library of books, church magazines, district and regional histories and much more. You can learn more by visiting the website (link on the itinerary page the cruise website) or we can email you more details that they have supplied us about a proposed visit.
• Stan Hessey book – some of you will remember Stan Hessey from our last cruise. He advises:  "I recently published a book called Walking with Grunts.  Its about my experiences as a chaplain with the 8th Battalion in Vietnam 1969-70.  I have had favourable reviews, especially one by Craig Wilcox, Centre for Historical Research at the National Museum of Australia.
• Video – we plan to do more video on this cruise than previously. This will be mainly for future cruise promotional purposes, so we will mainly limit this to portions of presentations (with speaker permission), casual interviews with cruisers, conference and cruise life generally. We hope to do a few more formal interviews with some of our special presenters and may film a few sessions fully. We will seek a video release from any who feature in a video if it is to be used in any public way.
• Recording sessions – neither audio nor video recording of sessions is permitted without permission of the presenter.
• First day – boarding will take place throughout the afternoon. We expect to have a registration table and gathering point set up in the conference room on Deck 2. It is likely you will want to find your room first. Your checked baggage may or may not be delivered when you first go to your room. You will no doubt want to explore the ship, but please look us up in the conference centre which you will need to locate soon anyway to pick up your nametags and other goodies offered to our group. The conference centre and small theatre are where most cruise sessions will take place. The opening and closing sessions will take place in Cleopatra's Needle on Deck 5.

Our cruise survey

• Research interests survey – Last chance! We will close research interests submissions at mid day tomorrow – Thursday, 30 January. To submit your interest click here.
• Cruise topics survey – this has served its purpose in helping us plan rooms for the sessions but we will leave it open if you are still interested in doing it  Click here to do the topics survey
• Shore activities and places to visit – if you still wish to submit your interests here you can still do so. We won't close this survey. Remember we are not organising tours or groups but rather getting an idea of people's interests so we can bring them together to get there. Two special notes:
• If you wish to visit the Cascades female factory in Hobart we recommend you visit their website and book in to see their show – see cruise itinerary page
• If you are interested in visiting or researching the Lutheran archives in Adelaide please do the shore activities survey or email us. We have some interest already but not enough yet for them to especially open for our group.

More cruise information

• web site
• cruise newsletters - including past newsletters
• Unlock the Past Cruises on Facebook - follow us for current discussions and updates
• cruises in the media

Just 6 days to go!

Alan Phillips and the Unlock the Past team
alan@unlockthepast.com.au
www.unlockthepast.com.au/cruise4