HeritageHunter - Citation Request

Citations

The source of genealogical information should be identified, whether we are posting information on a website or taking information from a website. I am not an expert in source citations, but I ask that you request permission and cite material you take from this website.

Judy G. Russell, professional genealogist with a law degree, advises:

So what about websites that are mostly factual, with family trees and birth-marriage-death data? Again, individual facts can't be copyrighted. But once someone starts choosing which facts to include, how to include them, what order they should be presented in -- that changes things. Those kinds of editorial decisions reflect the small creative spark that's needed to cross the line from not-copyrightable-fact to copyrighted material. That's why you can't simply copy a whole family tree that you find online without permission.¹

By researching and publishing some of my family history data online I hope to connect with other researchers and cousins. If my work is copied without permission and proper credit to Wanda Hunter Day, www.heritagehunter.info, the opportunity is lost for fellow researchers (and possibly cousins) and I to collaborate. Please -- "Follow the Golden Rule: you’d want somebody to ask permission to copy your work, so make sure you ask permission before you copy anybody else’s work."²

I respectfully suggest a few source citation guidelines for your consideration:

Elizabeth Shown Mills explains that a website is the online equivalent of a book where the book author = the creator of the website, the title of the book = the title of the website, the publication data = the URL and date accessed, and the citation detail = page, section, paragraph, etc.³

Thus, to cite this website in general:

Wanda Hunter Day, HeritageHunter (http://www.heritagehunter.info : accessed 26 July 2012).

One might think of the various sections of the website as chapters in a book:

Wanda Hunter Day, "Andrew Bishop," HeritageHunter (http://www.heritagehunter.info/p310.htm : accessed 26 July 2012).

To cite a specific document or piece of information from the website:

Wanda Hunter Day, transcriber, Minister's return for marriage of William Kelly and Ailey Allen, HeritageHunter (http://www.heritagehunter.info/p351.htm : accessed 14 August 2012), transcribed from Clay County, Kentucky, Marriage Book, 1834-1841.

Thanks to Diana Powell for permission to use her citation suggestions and format as a guideline for this information.⁴

Sources

1. Judy G. Russell, "Copyright and the website," The Legal Genealogist, 14 November 2012 (http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2012/11/14/copyright-and-the-website/ : accessed 27 February 2014).

2. Ibid.

3. Elizabeth Shown Mills, QuickSheet: Citing Online Historical Sources, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2007), Outside Panel 1, "Basic Principles."

4. Diana Powell, "Citation ideas," RamblingRoots.com: Pioneer Families of Washington County, Virginia (http://www.ramblingroots.com/RYB-p/citationideas.htm : accessed 14 July 2012).