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From: Mills <>
Subject: Re: [APG] NGS Quarterly format
Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 22:06:36 -0500
References: <3d.2f6bb4ed.2befd7fd@aol.com> <005401c31868$46f7b490$210110ac@DICK>


Regarding the treatment of children's data in a "child's list" in NGS
Quarterly format,
Richard wrote:
> Now, as I go about adding the death and marriage information at the first
> mention of each child <g>, I see a storm cloud. I have already bemoaned
the
> fact that I have more notes than text in parts of my book. Now I am
> wondering about the proper place to put the citations. Or do I put them in
> both paces?

Richard, I sure wish I had your wit so I could come up with a zinger in
response to your last word <g>.

In any case, I know you're prepared to groan at my answer. As a rule, NGSQ
format would cite the source of a fact (a fact that is not "common
knowledge") *wherever* and *everywhere* that fact was stated.

If we use footnotes on a page, and we don't include a footnote for each
piece of children's data, then it's a sure bet what will happen. Virtually
everybody who descends from the couple will photocopy (1) the pages on which
the parental sketch appears, with the children's list; and (2) the pages on
which *their ancestor* is carried forward. But they *won't* bother to
photocopy all the "carried forward" sections on all their ancestor's
siblings. Therefore, they won't have the source of any of the data in the
children's list, except for their ancestor.

> I am also wary of adding of putting a
> note at the first mention and adding a "See Note XX in Chapter 5"

Rightfully so! There's a 100% chance that something will require footnote
numbers to change, and any embedded reference to another note will
thereafter be wrong.

> Now that you have told me something I didn't want to hear, you must tell
me
> something I do want to hear! <g>

O.K. So what could we do as a "compromise"? (Sometimes even the Q has to
compromise <g>.) In the children's list, instead of citing a separate source
for each fact when space is tight, say, we might just make one note for each
child on the list, placing the note's reference number at the end of the
b-m-d data on that child. The expanded discussion of that child at a later
point would then assign each source to the specific event.

That makes a children's list a lot more manageable and usually saves a lot
of space -- especially in those cases in which one has to cite a tombstone
(or death certificate) for the birth, then cite something else for the
marriage, then go back and cite the tombstone (or death certificate) again
for the death.

> I can frankly tell you that with the numerous
> cross-references, hundreds of citations per chapter, and many thousands of
> index entries, there have been glitches every time I have tried to do
this
> in the past.

Will THIS make you feel better, Richard . . . ? In all the years I edited
the Q, I never saw a perfect paper (sorry, Q authors! <g>). And in all the
decades I've been writing, I've never *written* the perfect paper, either.
No matter how careful one tries to be, stuff happens! So plough on.

Elizabeth


=============================
Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG
Author, *Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian*
Editor/Author, *Professional Genealogy: A Manual for
Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers, and Librarians*

-------------------
CG and CGL are service marks of the Board
for Certification of Genealogists, used under license by those
who have passed BCG's rigorous examination process.

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