Footnote Help

Question

I'm working with another member on cleaning up some profiles and he posed a question that I didn't know the answer to and thought I would ask.

Is there a way to code the footnotes where we don't see the same footnote listed multiple times?

What I mean is, if you have one source but you cite it as a footnote many times in the biography, at the bottom under footnotes you get that same source listed repeatedly.  Is there a way for it to be cited several times in the bio but only once as a footnote?

 

Thanks!

Comments

Eowyn - I think this has been answered, but I couldn't follow the instructions very well. Lianne sent an e-mail in another forum that I could, so I wanted to share it here:

If you have multiple footnotes that are the same, they can be combined into one footnote. For the first one, enter something like <ref name="my tree">My tree</ref> and then whenever you want to reference that again, just use <ref name="my tree"/>. That way they'll all point to the same footnote at the bottom of the page. It looks a lot cleaner if you're referencing the same source multiple times.

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just tried it & it's nice :D

http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Watkins-2051

If you wanted to play, Tom Bredehoft created http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Practice-1 as a place to try things out.

Cheers, Liz

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This wiki practice is a broken link.

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You're right, Nancy. It looks as if the profile Practice-1 has been removed some time since 2013.

When I want to practise or experiment, I edit my own profile. Often, I can see if what I've tried has worked by using Preview. Otherwise, I save the change, have a look, and then undo it afterwards.

Answer 1

At the end of a Bio notation if you put [1] for the first source sitation [2], [3] and so forth.  Then under ===Sources=== list your source sitations [1], [2] and [3] etc... ----You can use the same source several times and note it once. For instance, John Doe b xx Jan xxx Potsdam, St Lawrence, NYand bp xx Jan xxxx St John's Church, Potsdam, St Lawrence, NY. [1], [2].  Then under Sources for first sitation [1] Record of Town of Potsdam, St Lawrence, NY and [2] Record of St John's Church Potsdam, St Lawrence, NY.---If he was married in St John's Church [2], funeral at St John's Church [2]---I'm not sure why I cannot make paragraphs and line things up right.  Maybe it is my program.  Hope you get the jist of my answer.

Comments

I got the jist! I do like this idea a lot. I shared it with the member I mentioned

Answer 2

Some don't agree, but I don't like the footnotes at all, and I stopped using them altogether.  When I work on an older profile, I take them all out.  Here's what I do instead:

== Biography ==

=== Marriage ===

: Date:  27 Apr 1759
: Place:  Haddonfield, Gloucester, New Jersey.  Source: [[#S21]]
: Husband:  [[Edgerton-129|Thomas Edgerton]]
: Wife:  [[Saint-28|Elizabeth Saint]]
: Child:  [[Edgerton-128|Joseph Edgerton]]

......

* Source: <span id='S21'>S21</span> Title: [https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.2.1/M4WV-9J9 Ancestral File].  Note: User submitted.

That gives you clickable links directly to the source for the item in question.  Hitting the Back button on the browser then takes you right back to where you were.  You can link the source like that an unlimited number of times and nothing ever gets added to the bottom of the page.

Comments

I like it. Must experiment.

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I'm confused. Clickable links can exist in footnotes just as easily as in sources.

Putting <ref> </ref> around Source: [[#S21]] wouldn't change anything about the link. It would just put a superscripted number in place of it, and it would appear at the bottom of the page where you put <references />. That way it doesn't break up the flow of the text.

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Hi Chris,

Yes, it makes a difference.  I don't want the footnotes at all.  Not using the <ref></ref>, the link takes me directly to the source, and not first to a footnote, and from there to the source via another link.  To me this is a cleaner and more useful format.

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I'm with you in principle, Fred, and I've tried it. I've also removed the word source.and the S, so now I have just #2 and 'bullet 2'.

I shall continue to experiment.

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I use it without "Source," too.  In notes in the bio section for example:

"...page 106 in Binns [[#S3594]] states, "..."

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"When I work on an older profile, I take them all out." - Fred Remus

I would hope that does not mean what it implies?
Adopting a style for yourself is one thing,
changing the work of others is quite another matter.

Different note, see Rice-52 for a combination.

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I agree with Mike about style rules.

It's important that as a community we discuss and develop common formatting standards and then adhere to them. To do otherwise is a recipe for conflict.

What Fred is doing may be an improvement to how footnotes are done, but we need to be careful here. Changes to rules should be discussed.

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Something else to try, instead of

:"...page 106 in Binns [[#S3594]] states, "..."

try

:"...page 106 in [[#S3594|Binns]] states, "..."

yields

"...page 106 in Binns states, "..."

 

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One point in favour of footnotes, that people may not be aware of:

If you have multiple footnotes with the same text, they can share a footnote! Just put <ref name="my footnote">This is my footnote!</ref> the first time you use it, and after that anytime you want a footnote that says "This is my footnote!" you can just use <ref name="my footnote"/>.

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For a concrete example of what I just said, see my great great grandmother's profile: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Broughton-175

Notice how two footnote numbers in the text point to the same footnote, which reads "Marriage record". (Yeah, I know, my source styling leaves something to be desired. I keep meaning to work on that.)

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Hi Michael,

Yes, in the course of experimenting with these things, I've also done it that way - which I think is another clean and cool way to include links.  I also use that format for external web links from text in notes.  For example, I've recently used something like this:

"The spelling I've used for her surname is the one given on [http://www.findgrave.com/... her parents' gravestone]."

Yielding, of course, "The spelling I've used for her surname is the one given on her parents' gravestone," with "her parents' gravestone" as a live link.

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Michael,

The only time I'll do that on a merged profile is when the merged profile is a very messy GEDCOM upload record that has sat untouched by the profile manager since the upload.  These things often have disastrously bad formatting and are riddled with errors.  When I'm done with them, they are clean, consistent, and very readable.

If someone feels I've removed anything important, we still have the records on the Changes page, and I, or they, can put back anything I've changed.  I can tell you that this has never happened.  What I do is difficult, time consuming, clean up work.  I've yet to have anyone object to what I do.

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Lianne, I liked that note. Thanks, Mike

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Hi Lianne,

Yes, that's one way of going about it, but I still like my way better.  Here are the reasons I wouldn't use that:

On footnote #1, you have the little up arrow the points back to the place in the bio section from which the reference came, but there's nothing pointing to the actual source entry to which it refers.  The same is true of footnote #3, except that there, there isn't even a separate source entry for "Manitoba Vital Stats death record," so essentially, the footnote is the source.  On footnote #2, you have the two numbers (2.0 & 2.1) pointing back up to the places in the bio section that brought you to the footnote, but again, no link to the actual source entry.

My way let's me go straight to the source entry, no footnotes involved.  As I said before, I think it's a cleaner and more useful way to cite sources from the bio section.

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In that example, Manitoba Vital Stats death record is also listed in the sources. This is similar to how footnotes are done in a book. You have the footnote, and then you look in the bibliography to find the full source information.

The main problem I'd have with doing it your way is how it looks in the bio. Footnotes just create a nice little superscript number that, while making it clear where to look if you want to know the source for a certain statement, doesn't interfere with the reading of the text. [[S12345]] is much more distracting.

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Matter of taste, I suppose.  But I don't find the way I do it distracting at all.  I've been working on a few, in preparation for another update GEDCOM upload, and I have an example that uses several links as I described them.  Take a look and see if you still think the links are distracting.

Ida L. Edgerton

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Coming back to this this morning. I agree with Chris in principle that it is nice to have a standardised system and that we should discuss it. So that's what we are doing.

I think we need to consider three issues. The first is the type of biography. Some require links as well as sources and the two are different. The second is the clarity and simplicity of footnotes. The third is that sources are of many different types and need to be cited differently.

My original feeling was that I didn't like a footnote that took me to a number at the bottom, which then took me to a full footnote. Why both? But contrary to what I said earlier and having tried a number of variations I do think we need footnotes.

I'm in favout of a numbered link in the text that takes you to a single footnote. In the case of repetition then just have e.g. see footnote 2 Then, as anyone looking at my profiles will see (and they are all based on UK records and repositories) instead of repeating things over and over I have abbreviated things like Cheshire Record Office to CHRO and provided one link to a freespace page which lists all abbreviations and contains links to an appropriate web page. It is similar to what Nae says below.

If, on the other hand, a reference is to a book, then that can be cited in full either on the Profile page, or, if it is used frequently, put in the Freespace.

One final point. At the bottom of a biography would it be sensible to separate Sources from other footnotes? That might prove more difficult. So far I have only used sources and labelled them as such, but I can see the need for other types of footnote.

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"I agree with Chris in principle that it is nice to have a standardised system and that we should discuss it." - Martin

As do I, in principle, but I think we need to be careful with being overly rigid with the "standardised system."  Let's not get into the, "I think you overuse commas" sort of pickiness.  I think there is room for variations and people should be able to use a style they prefer without running afoul of The Rules.

And I'm still not enamored of the footnotes.  I don't feel the format used in scholarly books is necessarily the best way to go about things in a hypertext environment.  Things work differently on the internet than they do in hard copy books.

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Just as a comparison with Fred's Ida Egerton, this is the version I prefer at the moment.

http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Allen-9185&public=1

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Ok I think you guys have solved my problem.

Fred Remus is right about the Sources needing to be global to the Profile, used anywhere, and repeated when and as necessary.

However, footnotes are deffinately a help for me to explain more about what is going on.

I have tried to incorporate both in the Lysle Perkins profile I was working on with Eowyn Langholf  at http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Perkins-651.

i would especially like to get your take on this Fred.

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Something I notice about that Ida Edgerton profile, and some of the others posted as examples here, is that they don't have a narrative. The facts are simply stated under subheadings, the way they're imported from GEDCOMs. So, Fred's way of sourcing doesn't seem distracting in that context. But shouldn't narrative-style bios be what we're aiming for? Something written more like a story rather than a list of facts? And in that context, I think the footnotes are way less intrusive.

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Hi Lianne,

Sure, narrative style bios are the best.  But what do you do when names and dates are all you really have on an ancestor?  I think that's the case with the great majority of our ancestors.  If it's someone who died 100 or 200 years ago, and they weren't anyone particularly famous, how much information do we usually have about them?  I know how Ida Edgerton is related to me.  And honestly, that's about all I know beyond the facts and dates you see in that bio section.

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Rodney, you have truly incorporated EVERYTHING into that one. 

It would take me a while to even enumerate all the different ways you can jump around that one with all the different types of links!  Maybe I'll take a shot at analyzing it later.  Right now, I need to sit for a while.  I'm feeling slightly dizzy. 

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I can see the advantages of Rodney's combination of sources and footnotes. That is what I was getting at earlier. Make a difference between the two. But the non-footnote links still look a bit clumsy. I think I would at least bracket them.

I'm not sure about narratives. Texts commonly have footnotes and bracketed references. That shouldn't look too bad. I'll experiment with one that has a narrative today.

Incidentally and as a sideline, I'm not convinced that narrative is the 'best' form of biography.. I have taken to doing a standard biography with key details and adding a further 'story' about the life if there is sufficient information. I don't want to lose key facts in a long narratibve.

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As a new member trying to figure out how things work, I have noticed a lot of discussion about "Profiles".  Some people are putting ===Vitals=== at the top followed by ===Bio===, some have no ==Vitals==, etc..  There is a great deal of variation. And, with some of the neglected and/or merged ones, it seems that you just have to do the best that you can.  

I am not trying to suggest that any particular form is better than another but it would seem that anyone using or contemplating use of GEDcoms should know that most of the original <span id='xxx'> references probably came  from a GEDcom import. Much of our discussion about "Footnote" and "Source" styles is immaterial to the GEDcoms.  

I think it is a case of fighting with GEDcom imports or learning how they are trying to make profile generation easier.  Can any one describe this preferred formatting style (basic "Profile") generated by GEDcom?  Are there many variations? Those coming from Ancestry.com would seem to be :
1 Biography
    •    1.1 Name
    •    1.2 Birth
    •    1.3 Death
    •    1.4 Residence
    •    1.5 Note
    •    1.6 Marriage
2 Sources
    •    2.1 Notes
    •    2.2 Acknowledgments

I am thinking that there would be less work to load the whole mess in a text editor.  Then you can easily search and replace blocks of information keep the basic <span id='xxx'> references in place.  Just make them look the way you want.  Any comments or suggestions will be appreciated?

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Just a comment regarding your example. I have seen this before and always thought it strange. Why do you and others list children in a marriage record? Shouldn't the children be listed under Family instead of Marriage? I'm not being critical, just wondering why people do it that way?

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I get Fred's comment about the link taking you right to the source but if it becomes a dead link or a link to a "pay" site that will be no good for many people. The actual reference should be spelled out on the page regardless of whether there is a possible link or not.

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Eugene,
I wasn't exact sure who's example you were referring to but I think adding the children completes a "Family" unit created by the marriage.  It is another source citation in the broader sense of "citation" if you will, and helps to identify and keep similarly named couples straightened out. (The siblings and children info at the top of the profile show everyone that is actually linked in by marriages.  The Marriage section could just be text describing people you still need to find.)

What surprised me was seeing a Father, Mother and Siblings as well as Husband, Wife and Children in the "Marriage" section of the same auto-generated by a GEDCOM import.  Both families used the generic Husband, Wife and Child terms but it is easy to understand what is going on after getting over the shock.  I would normally only report on the immediate family and leave the Parents and Siblings to each parent's individual profiles but, now that I know it can be automated I am thinking about it.

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Just in case Eugene was thinking of my example.

It is quite simple. It will be another thousand years before I manage to put all the children into Wikitree. Meanwhile at least they are listed in the profiles I've dealt with even if their own profiles aren't there yet.

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Just to clarify, this is the example I was referring to the following posted by [[Remus-2|Fred Remus]] :

=== Marriage ===

: Date:  27 Apr 1759
: Place:  Haddonfield, Gloucester, New Jersey.  Source: [[#S21]]
: Husband:  [[Edgerton-129|Thomas Edgerton]]
: Wife:  [[Saint-28|Elizabeth Saint]]
: Child:  [[Edgerton-128|Joseph Edgerton]]

My point is that it seems strange to me to list a child, in this case [[Edgerton-128|Joseph Edgerton]], under a marriage citation for his parents. I think the child should be listed under === Family === or some other such field, after all the child has nothing to do with the marriage date and source unless the marriage information came from a birth record for the child. It is fine to list children in the biography but I just think listing them under the heading === Marriage === is confusing. List them under === Family ===.  

I have also seen parents of the married couple listed in a similar source and that too seems like a red herring to me unless the parents were the witnesses.

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I really like putting children into the marriage information for the very simple reason that there can be more than one set of parents for offspring in one household, and the issue of that union is best distinguished from the issue of other unions.  In my work in the Vikings era, there are usually several wives and/or mistresses and many chldren attributed to the father in these unions.  When the siblings show up, they are all mixed together, and the only way to know the actual set of parents is to go into the mother's or father's profile and check. Having the children listed with the parents in the bio saves time and avoids confusion because it makes verifying the correct set of parents on the front page rather than inside links.  I am all for saving time.

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I get your point Sheri. I would suggest something like the following

=== Marriage === 

: Date:  27 Apr 1759
: Place:  Haddonfield, Gloucester, New Jersey.  Source: [[#S21]] 
: Husband:  [[Edgerton-129|Thomas Edgerton]] 
: Wife:  [[Saint-28|Elizabeth Saint]] 

Children of this union
: Child:  [[Edgerton-128|Joseph Edgerton]]

Answer 3

commented 14 hours ago by Jillaine Smith G2G6 Mach 6 (61,240 points)

What a good idea, on the footnotes, I mean!  You see, this is what I love about Wikitree.  Great people, great ideas!

Here's what I figured out, and keep in mind, I am not a "coder".

Born 1805 at Smithville, NY<ref>NY Archives,pp 3 viewable at xxxwebsite</ref><ref>family bible</ref>

Christened January 1 1806 at Church in Albany, NY <ref>See footnote 2</ref> [This would be the #3 source and would only have a " See footnote 2" listed in it.

===Footnotes===

1. NY Archives, pp 3 viewable at xxxwebsite

2. Family Bible

3. See footnote 2

 

I like the footnotes, especially if they have a direct link, because when you are reading something, you can hit the footnote marker, go directly to that part of the bio and jump to it, or have the source.  That way you are not dependent upon just the name of the person who entered the source, but you know if you can go and reference it, or if it's on some restricted site, so ergo, pretty much worthless for additional research.

Comments

The problem with this approach is if someone adds new cited text between cited text #2 and cited text #3. If you don't remember to change the reference to "See footnote 2", then that footnote is pointing to the wrong reference.

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Great answer, Nae. Thank you!

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Hi Nae, I like your suggestion a lot too! It's great when there are multiple sources that are used multiple times.  When there's just one source, like the member I mentioned is working with, it would still clutter up his footnotes with "See footnote 1" several times but on profiles I have multiple sources I'll definitely implement this idea too.

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The problem with this approach is if someone adds new cited text between cited text #2 and cited text #3. If you don't remember to change the reference to "See footnote 2", then that footnote is pointing to the wrong reference.

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Hi Nae,

You and I are doing very much the same thing, just by different means!

I also use the way I showed to go directly to book sources (no online link) and to go to online sources with the external link.  I'm going to play around with the way you do it.  It's a very interesting idea.

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Oh, you assume too much.  I never thought of doing this until it was brought up by Eowyn.  LOL  and I haven't used it yet, but I am going to start.  :)  I've flagged this page so I can try the different ways discussed here.  But truly, I like the footnotes as a reference / source, which is how I use them.  I also use footnotes to add my personal comments, ie if something is in doubt, or if it's info that I have personally, etc.

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OK.  I'll still play around with it. 

Incidentally, we really are thinking along the same lines.  Unless the notes about the source or the information in the source are very extensive, I included them with the source entry.  If I have a long quote, usually a few paragraphs, I'll put that under === Notes ===, or another appropriate heading, in the bio section.  But two or three sentences, I'll just tack unto the source entry.

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Absolutely right.....so everyone disregard that suggestion.

 

Another question:  Does anyone know an online coding course so that I can learn this easier and maybe come up with a definitive way to do this right? LOL, but seriously, if you know one, pass it on.

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A comment regarding the following examples of footnotes that I do realize are only examples:

===Footnotes=== 

1. NY Archives, pp 3 viewable at xxxwebsite (this should probably show additional info regarding collection name and reference number: New York State Archives, Bruler collection, Folio 17, page 3. It is also a good idea to refrain from using abbreviations that might not be understood by all)

2. Family Bible (somewhere there should be info telling where that bible is: Doe Family Bible in possession of John Doe, Lancaster, PA)
 

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Nae, I liked your idea very much.  I thought though, I would eliminate footnote 3 and use 2 more than once as the source.  To add 3, 4, 5 with a see 2 would then be unnecessary.  You can then have several sitations with the same pre-existing source footnote and still be clear. There would not be a need tfor any semblence of order, such as the first sitation gets 1 the second gets 2. This would also serve to shorten your list.  If you add a sitation that is not covered, then add in a new footnote to the bottom of the list.

Answer 4

I am finding this exchange really disturbing. Mostly because people are individually creating approaches to both the organization of the text and the citation of sources, resulting in a slew of different visual presentations that, frankly, I find really frustrating and difficult to follow. 

Most of y'all know that I've been beating the drum of developing at least some guidelines (if not standards) for organizing the text on profile pages-- especially profiles of the historically significant folks. This exchange about footnoting (or not) and how to do it, in my mind, further underscores the need for some sort of guidelines for all of us to follow. We are not creating profile pages for our own benefit but for the benefit of others; it behooves us then to make it easy for them to understand our work.

On sources, specifically, when I'm reading a profile, first off, I want to see sources for the information written. Where did this birth date come from? How do we know these were her parents? And I'd like to be able to click on a footnote number attached to a fact or claim that takes me to a very direct display of the source information. I also expect to see that source displayed in at least something approaching the AP style guide (and, due to my genealogy training, something that approaches the models in Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills). 

After no sources at all, few things bug me more than making it difficult to see/comprehend what source information is available. I have despised (possibly too strong a word) the S#1234 model being used at wikitree. I understand that it's related to how wikitree translates uploaded GEDCOM data, but where I can (and as my time permits), I go through the Puritan Great Migration profile pages and convert these S#1234 references to standard footnotes. (This assumes, of course, that there is ANY source information on said profiles; most of the time, there isn't.)

I also strongly believe, generally, in making it easy for a user to use a given system. If I click on a link, I expect it to take me directly to information about that link, not to another link. I do not want to have to click multiple times to find what I'm seeking. If I click on a footnote on a profile page, I expect to see information about the source, not an S#1234 reference. I want to be able to see very easily that the birth date came from Such-and-so Parish Record, London, England, volume 3, p 329, etc.; and then I want to be able to have an easy way to get back to where I was reading. This profile still needs work, but gets at what I'm describing: Amzi Doolittle Sr.

The industry standard of footnoting in print seems perfectly appropriate here in cyberspace also, with the additional benefit of online including hyper links to the actual source (or a digital representation of it).  Why we would want to make it more difficult and confusing to the reader is beyond me. And most of the examples included in the responses here do just that. In the absence of standards/guidelines specific to wikitree, it seems to make most sense to follow industry standards than each person coming up with their own preferred way of doing things. 

Related: Current use of the subheaders Sources and Footnotes contributes to the confusion. We should use one OR the other for cited references. Then use a separate subheader for identifying additional sources of information that are NOT already cited, where the reader can turn to for more information. Or something, but we need to figure that out, too. 

 

Comments

I agree with your thought process. I conceive of WikiTree to be, fundamentally, a way to publish genealogy research. it's what drew me to WIkiTree - not storaage, but as a place to make my research available to others in a format that I was fairly confident would remain free and accessible, and to publicly advance that research with likeminded individuals. As such, biographies should be arranged and footnoted in accordance with generally accepted standards in the field. I believe footnotes should include full citations in text, not just links, so that if a link goes dead, the information is still there. Every decision should be guided by making it easy for the reader. A standardized format could only help in this (and might take some friction out of collaboration).

A chronology such as you have presented for Amzi Doolittle, Sr. is one way. Informed by my "WikiTree apprenticeship" over the last year and plenty of rookie mistakes,  I have chosen a modified subject matter/chronological format - an "executive summary" followed by census history, marriage, children, professional history, death, etc. This is still very much a work in progress that I am conforming to what I have outlined above:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wehner-19

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"The industry standard of footnoting in print seems perfectly appropriate here in cyberspace" 

I have nothing to add but thanks to Jilliane, and Ellen, and Elizabeth Shown Mills .

Less is more . KISS ( keep it simple ). Keep it on the same page .

signed , Maggie ( still learning after all these years )

 

 

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I do agree, Jilllaine. But I'm not sure you are being fair to those who have been discussing this and who are making a variety of suggestions from which a good solution might be achieved.

My only quibble with your Dooloittle, is that I see what is labelled there as Footnotes as Sources. The rest might be described as Further Sources. I'd keep the heading Footnotes for any other comments that one might want to add, although that can be done perfectly well in the text.

Where I have differed from your approach so far (and I'm still prepared to change if needed) is the abbreviation of constantly repeated items and a separate link to a page to clarify them. That, I'm afraid, is for my own sanity. I'm still working on the relatively small number of profiles that I uploaded originally - five months on. I don't ever see the other 3000 making it to Wikitree unless I live as long as Methuselah.

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I concur with your quibble, Martin.