Citing sources

[SarahAnn23]

Hi, hoping someone can help me. I'm in the process of writing up my family history and am at the final stage trying to make sure that I have all documents, etc referenced correctly. I'm having a mental block at the moment. Could anyone advise how best to cite sources for birth, marriage and death certificates. Most of the BMD documents I have were obtained from the GRO so I just plan to put the GRO reference number as the source citation. Does anyone have any advice for me on this one please. It feels as if I'm missing something.
Thank you, Sarah

[Pam Downes]

Hi Sarah,

Everyone has 'their' system and some people are very precise about citing their sources.
Regardless of where I obtained a certificate from ( GRO or local registrar's office) I just say 'birth registered March quarter 1884, Bristol registration district volume 16 page 567'. I'm assuming that people will know that I'm referring to the GRO reference details. If I wanted to make doubly certain that everyone understood that, then I would say something along the lines of 'GRO registration details are birth registered March quarter, etc.'.
I find it works regardless of whether I have the certificate or not. e.g. if I'm listing the siblings of great- granny.

I should add that just putting the volume and page numbers by themselves is not enough. You do need the quarter, year, and registration district as well. Otherwise it's like just quoting the folio and page number of a census reference. You need the place and year of the census for a reference to make sense.

Pam

[Ed McKie]

It depends on what you mean by writing up your research, in my opinion.
If you mean that you are writing a family history in some kind of story form then do you need to cite your sources at all?
I have read many family history books over the years and those cluttered with footnotes or links to the source of the information are difficult to read.
In my own family histories in narrative form, I don't cite sources except for the obvious in the writing itself, like "the parish register records... "
If you mean some other kind of writing then perhaps only as much citation as is necessary would be my own option.

Cheers. Ed

[SarahAnn23]

Thank you, Pam - you've just confirmed what I thought was the right way to do this. Was just doubting myself, so thank you for your help. Sarah