Many of the records maintained in America’s courthouses—records that historians and some other fields generically call “primary” sources—are duplicate originals or record copies rather than true originals. Does it matter? For the next several postings, we’ll consider the processes that created these legal records, the reasons why differences matter, and characteristics by which we can recognize the type of record we are using.

A follower of EE's Facebook page has just inquired about how to identify the "author" of a database. That prompted another follower to ask whether "author" was the appropriate term for the creator of a database. EE, of course, addresses that. Let's consider a couple of passages here …