cwhermann wrote: ↑15 Apr 2021 10:57
... now I have to figure out how I want to handle the issue that Citation-specific Fields are not allowed in the FH Bibliography Format. One option is to abandon Evidence Explained methodology. Another would be to add another field to Source Level. ...
I should have been more clear: The issue is FH will not allow the
use of a portion of a citation specific metafield to be used in the Bibliography
when citing online images.
Fortunately, I have found a gold mine of genealogical sources in digital catalogs of State and County records found on both FamilySearch and Ancestry. These catalogs tend to be non-searchable, nor indexed, nor put into collections. (Yes, I spend lots of time browsing the images to locate the record I am interested in.) I will try to provide some clarity on the issue and the rationale for using a portion of the Citation-specific Metafield in the Bibliography when dealing with citating these online images.
When I made the decision to utilize a computer based genealogy database, I made a commitment to follow EE methodology/guidelines in my citations. NOTE: References to EE pages are all from the third edition, revised; 2017.
The general guidance on the citation of
Online Materials is covered in section 2..32, p57. "Online sources are publications, with the same basic elements as print publications." "
Rule 1: Most websites are the equivalent of a book." "
Rule 3: A website is a publication, not a repository." EE Section 2.33 provides the basis for
Layered Citations - most often utilized when citing digital sources. The first layer is the derivative of what is being sited, the second layer is the images and the third layer is the source of the source .
I know there are lots of genealogists who consider Ancestry and FamilySearch as a repositories and construct their citations base on that. To me, these sites play many roles, depending on the record. Sometimes they are a publisher of digital images, sometimes they are the author of an index and other times they are a repository of digital books. But this issue I am concerned about deals with them as the publisher of digital images.
If the basis of the methodology for digital images is that "A website is a publication, not a repository" and the basic format of a Bibliography entry for a book is:
Author. Title. Place of Pub'n. Publisher. Year. then, according to EE, it follows that the basic format of a Bibliography entry for a website becomes.
Website. Title/Database. URL. Year. With website references, EE considers the year of access as the year of publication. Their rationale is that you could look at the same document on the same website in another year and it may have been updated, revised, etc. much like a book published in a different year most likely would be different.
There are a number of quick reference guides in EE that refer to online images and layered citations (p.157,p. 167, US census images on page237, church records on page 314, jurisdictional record on page 381, etc), all with the following generic Bibliography entry:
Item Description. Website owner. Website Title. URL ; Date.
Based on the guidelines from EE as I interpret them, my citation for an image of a typical county issued marriage record, creates the following:
Footnote: Nez Perce County, Idaho, Marriage Record Vol. 6: p. 372, Jacob Phillip Hermann to Mary Walker Gibb, 3 June 1920; browsable images,
FamilySearch (https:/familysearch.org/search/catalog : accessed 4 April 2020) > digital film 4533344 >image 194 of 841; imaged from Family History Library film 1516570, item 1, microfilmed by the Genealogical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah at the Nez Perce County Courthouse on 27 August 1987.
Short Footnote: Nez Perce County, Idaho, Marriage Record Vol. 6: p. 372.
Bibliography: Idaho. Nez Perce County. Marriage Record. Courthouse, Lewiston. Digital File 4533344,
FamilySearch. https:familysearch.org : 2020.
On EE's online forum, it was argued that if a person had looked at the same digital file on 20 October 2018 and found the record in Vol. 6 page 252 for another couple dated 5 September 1917, it would result in two separate Bibliography entries for the same county record book with the only difference being the year of the date of access. EE's response/rationale is that if one accesses the images in two different years, it is the same as looking at a book that was published in two different years. The images may have been enhanced, the digital file may have been rearranged or expanded so the image numbers are different, etc. The bibliography should reflect the "edition" / year of the publication being cited.
Now back to the original issue: RM allows me to use the [AccessDate] (which is a citation level metafield) and "extract" the year and use it in the Bibliography using [AccessDate: Year]. FH does not allow {AccessDate} at citation level to be used as {AccessDate: YEAR} in the Bibliography.
As noted, I could abandon EE's methodology and re-write the Bibliography to exclude the year or could revise the template to include a Source level field called {AccessYear}, but this would change where I divide the lumping/splitting line and I would have to remember to create a new Source record every year. Each is doable, but would require revising all the templates and/or Source records once imported.
Given that more and more of sources are being digitized and we access them via digital images and CP's desire to support EE methodolgy, I would like to see CP provide the flexibility and will be submitting a ticket.