too much detail?

Question

Can you have too many sources?

Honest feedback on this profile please, it's taken ages to put togther - including the linked Free-space; positive and constructive comments welcome.

I'm hoping this is going to be the start of a major project, on the slightest glimmer of a hope that there may be a connection to my own family.

I've got a message in with the volunteers for the EuroAristo project especially as the line goes back to the 1500s.

many thanks

Comments

Very, very well done Alison.  It looked fantastic :)

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Many thanks for the nice remarks and helpful suggestions - I'm off tidying up as we speak.

While I'm there I have another question, do you prefer sources to look like this:

https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/records/6776659/lieutenant-colonel-h-n-gresley-british-army-royal-engineers/ out in full,

or a the shorter type of Find A Grave #8450023

I think I'm going to do the shorter, but value the opinion of others 

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Thanks Keith - it's been a breath of fresh air to get stuck into something after a year of Uni study. It starts all over again in October, but in the mean time there are 12 Baronets to get done.... my own family is great to work on, but sometimes a change is as good as a rest - and we didn't have a antiquarian and Bodleian librarian to look after the paperwork!

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They go back a lot further than the 1500s.  The Domesday tenant of Drakelow was called Nigel, a fact that presumably wasn't lost on Sir Nigel's parents.  I believe he was a descendant.

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Hi RJ - the book i have does describe links back to 1066 and the de Staffords that become the de Gresleys.  This is my first foray back beyond the 1700s so going one step at a time.

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Thank you folks for replying to this request for help... I've spent some more time on Nigel and I think he's about done, for now.... Although I have found another book from the 1840s about the British Baronets, so hopefully that will confirm what is known and not throw any spanners (locotmotove sized or otherwise) into the works.

I just want to say that, perhaps against protocol, I'm not going to pick a best answer - they've all been really useful.

Thanks again - this is Wikitree at its best.

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Genealogy books from the 1840s aren't noted for being reliable.  You may well find they differ from what is now known.  In fact, you can find pages full of pure fiction in old Baronetages.  Curiosity value only.

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Thanks for the warning :)

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Thanks to everyone for the nice comments and very helpful suggestions.

I've now got the hang of referring the the same source more than once (thanks to Kelly and Gaile) and even managed to get one footnote with three separate sources!

Following a trip back home at the weekend, have now got some photos of my own as a finishing touch.

Really "chuffed" with this profile.... :)

Answer 1

wow - that looks like a lot of work!

a suggestion to simplify your reference section:

Repeated use of a source

Here's how to use the same source citation multiple times.

The first time you use it, include a "name" inside the ref tag, like this:

<ref name="birth certificate">Birth Certificate of George Russell Beebe, Registration 398-5554-428 (1920), Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services - Bureau of Vital Records, Personal copy in the files of [[Beebe-655|Barbara Beebe]]</ref>

In all following references you can just use this:

<ref name="birth certificate" />

Done this way, all subsequent footnotes for this same source will point to the same footnote at the bottom of the page.

Comments

Thanks Kelly - I'm off to tidy up the sources. Perhaps a shorter list will be less intinidating - more sources that text is what prompted the post.

Answer 2

Magnificent profile, Allison - it absolutely blows me away!  It is wonderful to see a profile like this, where there is so much information that it gives the reader the feeling of knowing who the person was ... as if it were someone they had known personally.  It is also wonderful to know that there is evidence to support all that information being factual and reliable.  The combination of including all that wonderful detail and ensuring that the evidence of its veracity exists is what creates the long list of sources.  I see nothing wrong with that at all!

I have one suggestion that would make the list a little shorter.  You use the wikipedia article as a source in several places.  If you give the tag a name the first tim you use it, for example:

<ref name="wikipedia">Wikipedia</ref>

then each time you use it again, you can use the "empty tag" instead of repeating the first tag, as follows:

<ref name="wikipedia" />

That will only list the citation once, with links to each footnote that cited it.

You can't do that with the citations that specify different page numbers of the same document - they'll still have to be listed separately.

I can't get over that stunning profile!!!  THANX for sharing it with us.

Comments

Thank you too Gaile, I think (looking at the time) you and Kelly were responding simultaenously with the same suggestion - I'm on it :)

Once I've got a layout sorted for this Nigel, I'll use iton all of his ancestors - I like things to look good and match!

Answer 3

My opinions:

Too much detail? -Absolutely not, the profile you have created is good, and obviously well-researched.

Can you have too many sources? Absolutely yes - but the profile you have linked is not an example of that problem. What constitutes too many sources is not simply a question of quantity but also of quality and utility.

Generally I avoid using more than one footnote for a single fact. (I have seen gedcom with 13+ citations - for one fact!)

The main exceptions to one fact-one source are a) cases where two primary records exist, for example a death registered where the death occured and also registered where the person resided, and b) one citation and one explanatory footnote.

When sources agree there is no real need to cite each source - at most an annotation to the citation such as:

Hale, 2008. [Madan and also others support this fact]

When sources are inconsistent or disagree either i) all versions should be presented in the bio as a disputed fact (each sourced independently), and/or ii) an annotation and/or explanatory footnote should be used to explain why the version of a fact in the bio was chosen over other versions; for example:

Orcutt, 1886. [Burritt instead gives the date as 1650; this is believed to be a typo as Burrit relied heavily on Orcutt and elsewhere explains when the two works diverge,]

There can also easily be too many sources when they are all of unknown/questionable accuracy - citing 5 or 10 ancestral files or member trees is way too many.

Comments

Thanks Rob, i have seen a few dicrepancies in the ancestors that I have done a first pass on - birth and baptism dates interchanging, and the location of marraiges.

The Gresleys, as Rectors, seem happy to baptise, marry and bury thier own family so can get a bot confusing - but their tenure in any one place can also be tracked as they are recorded on everyone elses records too.

I want to really master having the main body of text from Madan and referecned as such, and then within that text I've found things like census and BMDs to back up what he says. I'm very aware that most of my eggs are in his basket so want to prove what I can to justify that - hope that makes sense.

Thanks again for the comments