GenDoc Study Group: Chapter 5

Mastering Genealogical Documentation Study Group

Homework

Chapter Five – Capitalization and such

Marceline Beem

Reference:

Jones, Thomas W. " Captitalization, Italics, Punctuation, and Other Citation Subtleties." In Mastering Genealogical Documentation, 49-62. Arlington, VA: National Genealogical Society, 2017.

This week’s reading deals with capitalization, punctuation and other grammatical details in citations.  I’m sure my eyes glazed over during the first reading of the chapter, but it does have a lot of useful information in it, and I encourage you to read it thoroughly - and more than once.  

I’ve just recently started using waypoints in my citations, and these are discussed via the section on the greater sign (>) in this chapter.  In Chapter 3’s homework, I referred to a family narrative I am working on.  It just so happens that this is the first written piece that I have deliberately decided to use waypoints in some of my citations.

Within a year or two of Edith’s death, her mother and other extended family members moved to  Knoxville, Tennessee.  By studying the city directories of that time period, I learned that Edith's mother, Frances Wallace, shared a house on West Oldham Street with her sister, Daisy McKamey.  Both women were widowed in the 1902 Fraterville Mine explosion. 

The city directories are imaged on Ancestry.  When I crafted my citation for Frances and Daisy living in the same house in 1904, I decided that while the page numbers are important, waypoints were a more meaningful way to show how to get back to the image.  Waypoints use the greater sign (>) to separate sections of the database or image set.  I think of waypoints as breadcrumbs to help my reader find the image once he or she gets to the referenced data set.

Since Frances and Daisy had different last names, there were two pages (and images) to cite.  This is the citation I used:

City Directory, Knoxville and Suburbs (Knoxville, Tennessee: G.M. Connelly: 1904), p. 547 and 842 (images 309 and 471 of 550), entries for Daisey McCamey and Frances Wallace; imaged in “U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 Sep 2017) > Tennessee > Knoxville > 1904.  

After reading this section, when I revise this narrative, I will change the citation slightly, and include the image numbers in the breadcrumbs instead of the first layer of the citation:

City Directory, Knoxville and Suburbs (Knoxville, Tennessee: G.M. Connelly: 1904), p. 547 and 842, entries for Daisey McCamey and Frances Wallace; imaged in “U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 Sep 2017) > Tennessee > Knoxville > 1904 > images 309 and 471.  

To view the pages, go to Ancestry’s home page, and search the card catalog for the U.S. City Directories collection:

Figure 1. Selecting the Card Catalog

On the search form, enter the name of the data and image set, "U.S. City Directories," into the search form.  The search receives one result.  Click on the hyperlink.

Figure 2.  Searching Ancestry's Card Catalog for a Specific Title

Instead of using the search form, browse the image set by using the levels designated in the waypoints.  First, select the state of Tennessee, then Knoxville, and then finally, when the year field is populated, select 1904.  The form returns a link to the images for the 1904 directory.

Figure 3.  Browsing the Selected Title

Figure 4. Closeup of the Browse Form Showing Hyperlink to 1904 Directory

Click the link.  It takes you to the first page of the 1904 city directory.  

Figure 5. First Image of the Knoxville, Tennessee 1904 City Directory

Change the image number to 309 to find the entry for Daisy McCamey:

Figure 6: Image 309 of the of the Knoxville, Tennessee 1904 City Directory, showing Daisy McCamey

Transcript:

McCamey Daisy, wid William, bds 201 W Oldham

Now go to image 471 to find the entry for Frances Wallace:

Figure 7: Image 471 of the of the Knoxville, Tennessee 1904 City Directory, showing Frances Wallace

Transcript:

Wallace, Frances C, wid Charles, bds 201 W. Oldham

When I was doing the research, I didn’t know to go to images 309 and 471.  It took a lot of guessing at image numbers and moving backwards and forward until I found the right pages.  And of course for the McKamey surname, I had to check several spelling variations as well.  As Dr. Jones points out, though, the citation doesn’t need to show the process.  The citation, including the greater sign (>) used to denote waypoints, merely shows ONLY the pages and images that support my conclusion that Frances and her sister Daisy lived in the same house in 1904.