Citing a pointer to an image (PRDH to Drouin)

Hello,

I am a beginning family historian researching my French-Canadian ancestors.

I have been using the model in Section 7.37 of EE to cite entries from the Drouin collection (images of church records/transcriptions), but have two question about another source that contains some facts derived from Drouin, and links SOME information to Drouin.  Entries in PRDH are identified by a "certificate number".

If I find a record in PRDH, and click through to Drouin, do I only cite Drouin?

If I only use information in a PRDH "certificate" which model do I follow to cite PRDH?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Celeste Brunell

 

 

 

 

 

 

Submitted byEEon Mon, 02/19/2018 - 10:40

Hello, Celeste. Apologies for not responding sooner. I've been toiling elsewhere with limited online availability.

For a "beginning" family historian, you are thoughtfully careful.  In answer to your specific question, let me ask another as the proverbial food-for-thought: If you used a book's index to find needed informatio nin that book, do you feel a need to cite the index page that pointed you to the page where the actual information resides?

As a rule, if we take our information from PRDH, then we cite PRDH. If we take our information from Drouin, then we cite Drouin. However, we do cite indexes we use as pointers if there are exigent circumstances. For example,

  • If an index misidentifies a person, once we locate our information and cite where we obtained that information we will likely want to add to our citation a note saying that the person is misidentified in the index.

  • If an index is a standalone source that is an especially valuable aid to finding information elsewhere, we will likely want to add a note—perhaps to the first relevant citation—saying that XYZ is a valuable tool to use to locate information in ABC.  This serves as a reminder to us if we set this research aside and return to it later after our recollection of sources has gone cold.

P.S for others who are new to Canadian research and may not be familiar with th  Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) of the Université de Montréal, here's an informative link. https://www.genealogie.umontreal.ca/en/MiseAJour