Question sources / citations

Hi all, 

lately i'm reading a lot about repo/sources/citations. it is still a bit difficult to truly understand, but i will manage in the end im trying a bit around in webtrees at the moment, just to find out what will work the best for me. what i have done now is the following:

REPO: Name local history associaton
Sources: Image bank {location} {type of images}
Citation: specific image with mediaobject

this citation is reusable at different location (in example, this specific image tells me something about the day of birth, day of death, day of funeral). is there a way to reuse documents on a citation level? 
for now it seems only to be available on a source level.

if some more information is needed please let me know!

this citation is reusable at different location (in example, this specific image tells me something about the day of birth, day of death, day of funeral). is there a way to reuse documents on a citation level? 
for now it seems only to be available on a source level.

For a librarian and researcher we understand the following definitions:

Source: This is the actual artifact, book, document, website, etc. from which we obtained our information.

Citation: This is a statement in which we identify what supplied the information for an assertion. (colloquially, the source)

GEDCOM understands the definitions a little different.  The Source_Record contains information about the artifact, such as a document, a book, a church register, a magazine, a grave marker.  The Source_Citation contains information about the “where in the source” the asserted information (the fact) can be found, like the page, microform roll and image number,  grave row/column.

The issue you have pointed out with the design of GEDCOM is that if, for example, a birth and death date is found at the same page/paragraph in a book you must enter the page information for each asserted fact found in the one Artifact Source.  There is no such thing as a “shared citation” in GEDCOM.  But my hope is that we can fix the way citations are created in v7.x of GEDCOM.  The image of the page only needs to be stored once, but needs to be attached to the Source_Citation for each fact asserted.

Some software changes the use of the Source_Record to become a Citation_Record, allowing for a shared environment, but this is IMO not a good solution!

@norwegian...
I am not used with these part of information and its difficult to follow you. You try to compare, but you do not use the same category names.

Franz,

I am happy to help you, but I’m not sure I understand your question!  Can you rephrase your question or list the terms you don’t understand or that I’m not using in the way you know them!

You define "Source" and "Citation" as for librarian and researcher.
Then you talk about "Source_Record" and "Source_Citation" as how Gedcom does.
But when I have a look into a webtrees example, I see "Source" and "Citation details".
...
Source_Record ... “where in the source” (or the source_record)
It all looks like a nice (arbitrary) mixing of categories source, citation, record and details.
..
image of the page ... image number ?
...

I do not expect an explanation or answer, simply read and forget, what I have written.

Franz,

Ah, let me be more clear!

A "Source" is an Artifact, such as a Book, Magazine, Church Registry, In-hand Certificate, Grave Marker, Website.  When I say "artifact" I mean the thing as a whole.  I sometimes call this the "Source Artifact" to differentiate it from what people colloquially call "the source" but are talking about something less than the book, magazine, church registry, etc.

A "Citation" is a defined structure based on one of the commonly used Citation Styles like: Chicago-Style (aka CMOS), APA, MLA, EE and some other minor ones that contains information about the Source Artifact and the "Where Found in the Artifact" specifics of the asserted data.

A Source_Record in GEDCOM is an actual record structure that outlines some of, but not all of, elements needed to identify the "Source Artifact", such as Author, Publishing Information, Title (of the Artifact), and other.

A Source_Citation in GEDCOM is an actual structure that outlines some of, but not all of, the elements regarding the asserted fact's "Where Found in the Source Artifact" most notably PAGE.

A Third GEDCOM record is the Repository_Record that has included in its structure the name of the Repository (Holder of the "Source Artifact").

To build a well formed "Citation" in a particular Style (CMOS, EE, etc) we must extract from the three GEDCOM structures (Repository_Record, Source_Record, Source_Citation) the appropriate data, organize the information correctly and include the appropriate punctuation.

For example:

CMOS indicated the following citation for a book: <Author Name>, <Book Title>, (<Publisher Name>, <Year Publish>), <page number>
Charles Smith, Interior Design (Pantheon Books, 2020), 45. 

EE would have the following citation: <Author Name>, <Book Title>, (<Place_of_Publication>: <Publisher Name>, <Year Publish>), <page number>.
Charles Smith, Interior Design (New York City, New York, Pantheon Books, 2020), 45.

To create these Citations in the Style selected you would pull data from two of the three structures in GEDCOM.  Unfortunately, the Source_Record does not have dedicated tags/fields to separate out all of the elements from the PUBL (SOURCE_PUBLICATION_FACTS) {Publisher Name, Year, Place} to accomplish the task.

Also note that some Citations require the <Repository Name> and <Repository Location> information from the Repository_Record where the Artifact Source was found, such as a Church Book held by a church!

I hope this helps.  I can provide more information if necessary!

I have to admit this topic seriously does my head in.

I have decided that IF I am not using these Sources and citations 'correctly' them I will just use them and be consistent how I use them.

I think one could pontificate on the hows and whys and wherefores of being accurate however to obtain such would require one hell of an overhaul in GEDCOM and ALL Genealogy Software.

RickM wrote:

I have decided that IF I am not using these Sources and citations 'correctly' them I will just use them and be consistent how I use them.

 

Their is no right or wrong way to use Repository_Records, Source_Records and Source_Citations, you can do whatever you want! But part of the reason for GEDCOM is that the files can be shared to other software and researchers and if every application and researcher uses the fields/tags differently then they are in a world of hurt when they try to share. If all a person does is do things for their own purposes and never publishes their findings, then who cares?

So I'm not pontificating, just answering the OP and later to Franz how the data should work and what a "Citation" for published works should contain, but to each their own.

Sorry your head hurts.

By the way some genealogy software takes writing "EE" based citations seriously and have already implemented in their GEDCOM different uses for the Source_Record!

Ken,

I was not pointing anything towards you! I used pontificating as my 'big' word for the day thing.. <Smile>..

Perhaps I should contact you privately and get your opinion on how I am using these particular tools.. I truly cannot get my head round it..

Rick,

Open a new thread and ask a question so others can chime in and help or express their frustration! That’s what theses forums are for!

Let me come back to the original post.
For me the thread/post owner does not use these tags as they are intended by gedcom (and completely misinterprets them. images are secondary):
   The citation is mainly to proof (Quality of data) the event/fact within the source (the image can visualize this proof, but needs not).
   The citation data is not reusable, cause it connects this event/fact to a (the) source.
The source itself is reusable and the media objects are reusable, but not the citation.

On experimenting with this theme, I wanted to change the informations entered for a Source (Title    Abbreviation    Author    Publication). How do I do?

Once you are logged in to webtrees, go to the Source, click the edit button, then click the edit link and you can edit the Source_Record.

Can not find: Can you show me a screenshot?

From the demo database.

Thx for that. Now I see where it comes from:
It is from Lists / Sources, where I can edit existing sources one by one, selecting by title.

Franz Frese wrote:

Thx for that. Now I see where it comes from:
It is from Lists / Sources, where I can edit existing sources one by one, selecting by title.

Yes, or you can click on the source title from the fact that links to it in the fact list of an individual or family.

 

thx!
or you click onto the title here:

In my webtrees tree, I use a lot of sources and source citations. I am also frequently facing the need to reuse source citations.

One typical example is a church book record for a marriage. In this case, I describe the church book as a GEDCOM source, which is located in a certain GEDCOM repository (e.g. curch book archive). With a GEDCOM source citation, I refer to the specific marriage record, e.g. chapter "marriages" and the exact page in the church book. 

A typical use case, where this kind of source citations need to be reused, shows up if the marriage record contains several chunks of information, e.g. the profession of the broom, the birth location of the bride, or the marriage date itself. For each of these chunks of information, I add the source citation to the related facts and events within webtrees. 

Like Ken described above, GEDCOM does not provide data structures to describe source citations as separate data objects (and reference them several times). For GEDCOM 7, an issue was raised to extend the standard in this direction.

In order to cope with the current GEDCOM situation and make reusing more comfortable in webtrees, I added a copy/paste feature for source citations in the RepositoryHierarchy custom module.

Screenshot:
 

A description of this feature set can be found in the Readme of the custom module: 
Copy-Paste mechanism for source citations in the individual and family view

thanks a lot for the extensive discussion above! it gives food for thought. 

at the moment my feeling tells me to not use the citation level, but at the other hand i can see this is not the best solution with the information posted above. glad we have weekend, so we can think about it

I use the Source_Citation all the time to save and maintain specific information about the detail of where I found the asserted fact.  Such as: page number in the book, an image of the page from a census or church book, text from an interview, link to the website page.