Transcribing a source

+4 votes
299 views
I received a book "History of Van Buren County Michigan 1982" that my grandmother and aunt have made reference notes specific to my family, plus there is a section specific to my ancester Hanes McConnel.  I would like to transcribe the whole section.  The copyright is 1983.  What is the best way to handle it as a source?  Unfortunately I have not found it digitized so i could pull it out that way.
WikiTree profile: Matthew Haines McConnell
in Policy and Style by Sherry Miller G2G6 (9.8k points)

Hi Sherry. Sorry but the basic answer is that you cannot normally do this. See

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Copying_Text

If you have written permission from the authors or publishers which you could quote, an exception may be possible, but a better approach may be to paraphrase the material using only short direct quotations, in quotation marks. You should cite the reference as a book: see

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Sources#Book

2 Answers

+6 votes
In the US, fair use applies.  See https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html .
by Mark Weinheimer G2G Astronaut (1.3m points)
That's fair dinkum, mate.
+2 votes
You can still use it as a source, you can't transcript it (copy). You can paraphrase the information by rewriting it into your own words. Be sure to include a citation when alluding to an idea or wording that's not your own, even if you have to do this multiple times. For example, don't just cite the end of a paragraph. If you use a phrase in a sentence, then cite the sentence.

One other alternative is to search the internet for another source. I talked about perplexity AI (https://www.perplexity.ai/) a few weeks before you can paste a sentence or two, and it will try to find online sources for the information. It doesn't always work, but is something you can easily try. Of course, you can google it.

I don't know how familiar you are with Google, but if you use https://books.google.com/ Goolge books link, it will search for books containing the information online. Some are not viewable online, but others are. More and more published books are coming online, so there is a good chance it might be viewable online.
by Jimmy Honey G2G6 Pilot (217k points)

Related questions

+3 votes
0 answers
181 views asked Mar 15, 2023 in Genealogy Help by Jack Blair G2G3 (3.6k points)
+11 votes
4 answers
219 views asked Feb 27, 2023 in The Tree House by Mathew Mcconnell G2G Crew (480 points)
+4 votes
1 answer
+6 votes
2 answers
+4 votes
0 answers
224 views asked May 11, 2022 in Genealogy Help by Michael McConnell G2G Rookie (250 points)
+3 votes
0 answers
202 views asked Feb 8, 2022 in Genealogy Help by Judy Rodocker G2G Rookie (220 points)
+11 votes
3 answers
316 views asked Feb 5, 2022 in The Tree House by Ruth McConnell G2G Crew (490 points)
+6 votes
1 answer

WikiTree  ~  About  ~  Help Help  ~  Search Person Search  ~  Surname:

disclaimer - terms - copyright

...