Monday, May 7, 2012

City Directories (Beta) Revisited

In an earlier post: City Directories - Citations there as a comment by an Anonymous Apr 29, 2012 05:13 PM reader. Basically it said that I didn't have it "right". So, I took a look at the details of the comment and agree that I wasn't sure to begin with. Happened to follow a Shaky Leaf hint this morning and had another City Directory (Beta) hit to give it another look.

This person is in Newark, New Jersey. In order to generate the correct Citation, I picked up the top line of what Ancestry.com provides, that it provides:

New Jersey, Newark, 1899-1901 - Holbrook's Directory Newark 1900.

The specific family is on Page 680.




The next trick, in this case, is to find who the Publisher was. Went to the beginning of the Directory and finally located the publishers, name, and location.


 Holbrook Newark Directory Company, Newark.

I selected the Digital Archive Template for this Directory. Clicked on Add, New, and typed "dig" as the Keyword (for Digital) and selected that template.



The date to enter is:

  • Collection: U S City Directories, 1821-1989 
  • Collection format: digital archives
  • Website creator/owner: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc
  • Website title: Ancestry.com
  • URL: www.ancestry.com
  • Year: 2011
  • Comments

That information came from the Source Description from Ancestry.com.

For the Citation detail: I entered

entry for Agnes Steiger Klepp accessed: 07 May 2012

and the Citation text:

citing Holbrook's Directory, Newark 1900 Holbrook Directory Company;  (Newark, New Jersey) page 680




So the Reference Note is:

"U S City Directories, 1821-1989", Ancestry.com Operations, Inc, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com), entry for Agnes Steiger Klepp accessed: 07 May 2012. citing Holbrook's Direcotry, Newark 1900 Holbrook Directory Company;  (Newark, New Jersey) page 680..
 (just noticed a typo in the image) But the Reference note is correct.

Again, the sequence of the Text in the Reference Note is controlled by the Template selected, and the information that is put in the Citation Details, and Citation Text fields. The formatting of the text is under the control of FTM2012.

I am changing my City Directory (Beta) entries to this format.


Lesson Learned: Evidence Explained! is a great resource. But sometimes identifying the right template, based on that resource, is difficult when working with Online Resources.  (for me at least)
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Copyright © 2012 by H R Worthington

2 comments:

  1. I second that, Russ! I almost feel like I'm spending more time trying to deal with FTM's funky approach to citations than I am doing research! :)

    And, to top it off, I noticed this weekend while using some shaky leaf hints, that Ancestry/FTM drops a lot of the data. I had several census records that left all of the key data blank (roll, sheet number, etc.). It was there when I looked at the record online, but it didn't merge it into FTM. Grrr...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michael,

    Do be fair here, we are talking apples and oranges. Evidence Explained!, which is what the Template Feature is built on, does not really address too many of the Catalog items we find on Ancestry.com.

    We have a choice, to use the Template Feature or use the Free-Form Citation (default citation) screen.

    What I am trying to do here, when I can, is to work with those catalog items from Ancestry, and find an EE! Template. It's not always possible.

    I am NOT a Citation Expert, which is why I keep working on them. I do have EE! right next to me, so I do try to see how "something" fits in. This is one of those examples.


    I do everything I can, to use the Web Merge Feature. Reason: Please read this blog entry

    http://ftmuser.blogspot.com/2012/05/why-use-web-merge-feature.html

    I copy the Source Information from the Web Search hit, and Paste it into the Citation Notes tab. I do and will continue to go back and clean up the Web Merge. For me, its worth the extra work.

    Not EVERYTHING is included when you do a Web Merge. If you do different Census Years, for example, different data is included in the Web Merge.

    Please remember, and this isn't an excuse, only an observation, is that web merge feature hasn't been around that long, and the Ancestry.com's online collection has been. It's a matter of both development groups working together.

    Don't forget, that YOU always have an option to give the developers feedback at the Online Help Center, within the Help menu. (details are useful)

    Thank you for your comments.

    Russ

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