Revolutionary War records

By Anonymous on Sat, 01/09/2016 - 10:27

Forums

Hi, I have several Revolutionary War documents I need to cite from the Pennsylvania Archives. I based what I have on the Quick Check model on page 429; could you please review this and let me know your input?

Source List:

Pennsylvania. Westmoreland County. Records of the Office of the Comptroller General. Record Group 4; Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg.

End Note:

William Driscoll (Thomas Stokely's compy.), County Lieutenant Ledger [untitled, undated], Westmoreland County, Distribution Ledger B, 1784-1785 (one volume), pp. 52-53, Militia Load Accounts, 1781-1782, Records of the Comptroller General, Record Group 4; Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg.

Your assistance is greatly appreciated!

Submitted byEEon Sat, 01/09/2016 - 12:55

pbaum,

Speaking blindly (given that I've not used that particular source and would not know of any quirks it might have), it appears that you've covered all the essentials. EE would make a few tweaks in the interests of clarity and standard practices.

Source List:

Pennsylvania. Westmoreland County. Records of the Office of the Comptroller General, Record Group 4. Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg.

End Note:

William Driscoll (Thomas Stokely's comp.), County Lieutenant Ledger [untitled, undated], Westmoreland County, "Distribution Ledger B, 1784–1785," pp. 52–53; Militia Load Accounts, 1781-1782; Records of the Comptroller General, Record Group 4; Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg.

By way of explanation:

  • In standard source-list or bibliographic format, a period separates each element. Here, the record group name/number is one element. The archives and its location is another element. Using a comma between the number and the archive name implies that the number is a part of the archive identity.
  • "Company" is commonly abbreviated as "comp." or "co." rather than "compy."
  • Placing a title in italics tells the reader that you are citing a published source and one that has been published as a standalone item. However, the "County Lieutenant Ledger" reference in your citation is not a published source, so the italics should not be there. (Your bracketed statement indicates that it has no title at all.)
  • I've highlighted the whole phrase at that point of the citation because your statement that the book is untitled and undated seems to conflict with the next part of your citation, which says that you have used Westmoreland Co.'s "Distribution Ledger B, 1784–1785."  That would seem to be the title. Given its details, it's likely that you copied this exactly from something, which is why I have added the quotation marks. Is this a situation in which the ledger has lost its cover or else the cover is blank and there's no title page--in which case the identification as "Distribution Ledger B, 1784–1785" is from cataloging? Or it possible that "County Lieutenant Ledger" is a part or one section of "Distribution Ledger B, 1784–1785"?  (Most people who'd read your citation without using the source would also be puzzled by the CLL identity you've given it. Is this a county ledger that lists lieutenants, their dates of appointments, etc.? Or is this a Lieutenant's ledger, in which the county lieutenant recorded certain things?)
  • You'll also notice that I've replaced some of your commas with semicolons. In standard citation format for citing records from state and national archives (where there are many hierarchical layers in their cataloging and arrangement scheme: e.g., documents < files/books < collections < series < collections < record groups), each layer is conventionally separated by a semicolon. See EE 3.1 "Archival arrangments."

Submitted bypbaumon Sat, 01/09/2016 - 13:36

Hi,

First, thank you so very much for your help!

I will try to answer your questions as best I can. I received these documents by mail, so I only have the  cover page included with the document I'm citing. So I really don't know the exact relationship of these records and how they are filed.

The cover page says: RG-4, Records of the Office of the Comptroller General; [a couple lines are skipped, then:] Militia Loan Accounts [a couple more line breaks, then:] Distribution Ledger B, 1784-1785 (1 volume).

The above is really all I have to work with. I was presuming that each of the above titles are names of records that fall within smaller and smaller groups of records? So the County Lieutenant Ledger (CLL) is in Distribution Ledger B, which is in Militia Loan Accounts, etc.? 

  • I spelled it compy as that is the spelling used in the actual document;

 

  • The County Lieutenant Ledger is untitled (the document itself), but that is what it is actually known as, per the archivist. I suspect that the first page of the ledger bears this title, but I don't know for sure because I only purchased the pages on which my ancestor appears. 

 

  • The CLL is a compilation of all the company registers of the Battalions formed within Westmoreland County. It therefore contains a list of all the men who were paid for service in the war.

I hope this helps to clarify (rather than muddy) my predicament. Given this additional information, is the citation still good or does it now need more tweaking?

Again, thanks for your kind assistance!

Submitted byEEon Sun, 01/10/2016 - 09:32

pbaum, your assumption is correct. The arrangement of the data on the cover sheet to the isolated pages sent to you by the archives does represent the heirarchy, from large to small, under which the archives arranges documents into record groups > series > collections > etc. I'm assuming that you've also gone to the website of the Pennsylvania State Archives and sought more information about this ledger in the online catalog. Considering the details that you were given, the citations we've worked out above should work well enough. Just remove the yellow highlighting, of course.

You've also given our readers an excellent "lesson" on unsuspecting issues when we order records from an archives. It's natural to ask for just the pages on which our item-of-interest appear. That's also what archives typically copy in these situations, when we don't specify otherwise. But it's wise to be proactive and tell the archives that we also want images of the register's cover (or the file's jacket), any sectional divider that might exist to introduce our record, and the first and last page of the document (when our item of interest is just a small part of a long document).

Submitted bypbaumon Sun, 01/10/2016 - 18:45

Dear Editor,

You are very correct about being more careful when requesting records from a records archive.

I was thinking that I may add [page untitled] following the document rather than just [untitled], which may clarify that the document itself is untitled, but is known as or called County Lieutenant Ledger?

You are also correct in the fact that I did indeed look up the "path" to the document! This is one thing I really like about the PA Archives, they have a very good online catalog that comes right up if googled.

Thank you again so very much for your time and assistance!

Submitted byJadeon Mon, 01/11/2016 - 02:33

pbaum, I am quite surprised and interested to learn that you have been able to acquire copies from the Militia Loan Ledgers (which accounted for funds loaned by Congress for payment of back wages due).  These ledgers have been sequestered from public access for decades due to their extremely fragile condition.  The last I knew, they had not even been microfilmed.

Capt. Thomas Stokel(e)y's accounts would be of great historical interest for frontier military activities.