Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian

by Elizabeth Shown Mills

Book Overview

This book provides the family history researcher with a reliable standard for both the correct form of source citation and the sound analysis of evidence. In successful genealogical research, these two practices are inseparable. The book is invaluable for beginners, who want to avoid mistakes in their research, and for advanced researchers, who are seeking guideposts to map their own course precisely.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0806315431
• ISBN13: 9780806315430
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Genealogical Publishing Company
• Length: 126 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Specifically written for family history researchers

Evidence! Citation & Analysis For The Family Historian by experienced genealogist Elizabeth Shown Mills is a very useful and "user friendly" guide specifically written for family history researchers and genealogists regardless of their experience levels. Evidence! is about the proper form, presentation, and documentation of source citations and drawing sound conclusions from often limited evidence. An absolute "must-read" for anyone devoted to putting together a genealogical history, Evidence! is an essential, core title for personal, professional, academic, genealogical, and community library reference collections.

Absolutely essential for any genealogist

Every serious family researcher should be not only aware of, but thoroughly familiar with, the late Richard Lackey's _Cite Your Sources,_ which, on its publication in 1981, quickly became the Bible of genealogical source citation. Many, however, are not aware that Lackey was inspired by an article published more than two decades ago by Elizabeth Mills -- another name that all genealogists should be familiar with. Ms. Mills, one of our field's most popular and influential conference speakers, and for the past fourteen years the very capable editor of the _National Genealogical Society Quarterly,_ has steadily promoted the cause not only of improved genealogical writing but of the rigorous and systematic analysis of material that must precede good writing. This relatively brief and very accessible volume distills and codifies her advice in three main areas: the principles behind source citation, the formats in which citation should be cast, and the fundamentals of evidentiary analysis itself. "Effective citation is an art," she says, but it's an art that anyone may learn who makes the effort to understand the motivation for careful citation and the factors underlying the carefully thought-out formats she recommends. And whatever the source of information -- courthouse land records, family Bibles, cemetery markers, microfilmed census registers, unpublished manuscripts, electronic e-mail, or a videotaped family reunion -- you will find multiple examples of each in this book. Even more important, to my mind, are her thirteen concisely explained points of genealogical analysis, from the distinction between direct and indirect evidence and between quality and quantity, to the importance of custodial history and her reminder that "the case is never closed on a genealogical conclusion." For all these reasons, this book is a must-have for every genealogist (and historian, librarian, and archivist).

Proof! We need Proof!

With the Internet, it seems so easy to just get on the Web, push a few buttons, and presto you have a fantastic genealogy linked to every famous person in the world. People! This is not so! Just because it is on a genealogy site on the internet does not prove it certain that you are related to that particular person. Proof! You need proof, the more the better. Primary evidence is much more important than your secondary evidence. This book is an excellent source and guidebook to help you do just that. You should and must document your sources in your family tree. Too many people are just uploading their family tree willy nilly to net and everybody just takes it for granted that it is correct. A good genealogist will at all times documents her or her sources for every (and I say every) bit information that is included in the family tree. Primary evidence is the best source: birth certificates, social security forms, etc. Secondary evidence is good if it is backed up with other forms of proof. This book will help you find the best source and test that source against the information that you have. Then it will show you how to include that information style in your family tree. Please cite your sources in your genealogy and family trees! For the present and the future!

Every family historian should own this one!

Elizabeth Mills's Evidence! is the best single source for genealogical documentation. Every genealogist should be required to own it.Information technology has made the exhange of family "research" so much easier in recent years. Everyone wants to be a family historian! Unfortunately, way too many are clueless when it comes to documenting their work. It is all but impossible to go behind the majority of today's internet genealogists and review the proof of their research. In most cases, you may as well start completely over, you can't locate a thing based upon the sources they provide. :(This is an EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT little book and everyone tracing their family history ought to keep one on their desk - and refer to it again and again. I found Mill's book concise, easy to follow, and invaluable for documenting correctly all those tricky sources particular to family history. Buy one!

Herculean task superbly done--careful and copious examples

In this book, one of America's foremost genealogical scholars has taken on a Herculean task and accomplished it superbly. Every scholarly discipline has its own basic standards for the nitty-gritty of citational form--the sort of thing that we all hoped we had escaped after our term-paper days were over. In 1980, before genealogy was faced with the computer revolution, the late Richard S. Lackey, FASG, published Cite Your Sources, the first comprehensive guide to "Documenting Family Histories and Genealogical Records." Since Lackey's untimely death in 1983, the few attempts to update his recommendations have been Quixotic and (fortunately) unsuccessful, until the current work by Elizabeth Shown Mills, the editor of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. Elizabeth Mills takes on more than citations. She recognizes that citations and critical analysis are closely related. We have all seen genealogies that are promoted as thoroughly documented, but when we investigate the sources cited, we find that the author was unable to evaluate them or to draw sound conclusions from them. Citations by themselves do not guarantee the quality of a published work, but they are essential so that the evidence can be judged and, if necessary, the research can be repeated. The discussion of genealogical analysis in this work is among the finest we have seen; studying it carefully will not only reward genealogists but also scholars in related fields. Evidence! provides careful and copious examples of each type of citation that the careful genealogist is likely to encounter, with charts indicating the first citation to the work, document (etc.), subsequent citations to it, and its entry in a separate bibliography. This is not to suggest that everyone will agree with all of Elizabeth Mills's recommendations. While all of the major journals have gone to footnote citations, each has developed its own quirks, and the editors of each are grateful when contributors try to match their journal's form. In addition, Evidence! recommends that more information be included in a citation than others might consider necessary. At least for me, information on the current location of standard county archives (especially probate and land records) is better provided in such works as Ancestry's Red Book than it is in citations. Whether one is in total agreement with every recommendation, Elizabeth Mills has provided the best single source for genealogical documentation and a seminal discussion of genealogical analysis. This is a book that every genealogist should be required to own. --David L. Greene, Ph.D., CG, FASG; Editor, The American Genealogist; July 1998, 73:233