Source Citations and Personal Historian 7

During the Roots Tech 2021 conference, I watched a few different sessions on source citation. Now, I have known for quite some time that it's important to "cite your sources" and I've even bought a couple of books on the topic. It wasn't until I watched  "Peeling Back the Layers: Citing Sources from Online Materials" by Diana Elder that it all started to make sense to me. 

In the past, when I read other published work, I often found it difficult (if not impossible) to follow/utilize the source citations that were provided. They just weren't clear and I didn't understand how to follow them. Dianna's talk really helped me understand the basics; which, has led me to understand existing citations better as well as inspired me to clean up my own. 

Back when I was a baby genealogist in 1999, I didn't know anything about citing sources. It wasn't long before I found myself looking up something I had already found or couldn't go back to a source I had used before because I didn't know what it was!

In current times (especially with COVID), I have done quite a bit more online research. This especially confused me with source citations. At one point, I was only citing the source (i.e. web page) I found the information on. Dianna really explained how to layer the citation to include both. 

I have started using Diana's method of (from her syllabus):

1. Understanding the source by closely examining it and looking at all the fine text on the web pages. 
2. Make sure I answer the 5 questions in my citation
1. Who created the source?
2. What is the source?
3. When was it created and\or when did the event happen?
4. Where is the source located?
5. WhereIn the item is the source information located?

I initially started going back through my Roots Magic database and updating the source citations. I very quickly learned that was going to be A LOT of work! I struggled with it a bit and got frustrated. I've been very anxious (like many others) for the new version of Roots Magic to come out, but it's going on 2 years since it was first announced. I've been doing Beta testing for it and there are still SO many bugs! 

I started shopping around for new software and found Personal Historian 7. WOW! I fell in love with the work flow of entering the source first. Not only that, but I was able to create custom templates to use for sources so that I could format my citations the way that makes sense to me. I'm using Diana's process to make sure I have usable citations for myself and anyone who comes after and Personal Historian 7 is making the re-entry SO much easier. 

One last note I would like to make is that even though the task of re-entering my data (I've been researching since 1999) is daunting, I can't express the immense value that I'm getting out of the exercise. I am re-examining all my sources and finding new information each time I re-enter data. I am doing a little at a time. I block off 1-2 hours and re-enter data each day. I make note where I left off and pick up there the next time. I would truly recommend it.