citing different pages from same source using inline citations?

Question

Inline citations- What is the best format for citing different pages from the same source used multiple times in a profile?

Answer 1

I find this easiest:

Start with <ref name=xxxx>    End with </ref>

Ex:  <ref name=Book>Smith, John.  The Book.  Cambridge Publishers, Boston, Massachusetts, 1909, p. 122-129</ref>

Each time you use it again , just insert <ref name=Book />

Note the last one has a space before the slash mark

Comments

Thanks, Chris

 I understand that part totally. Using your example, now I want to cite page 122 for the birth citation, page 124 in the marriage citation, page 128 in the death citation and page 129 for the burial citation. How do I cite the different pages without getting suggestions -869 Duplicated named Inline citations?

Ron

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I just create separate inline citations.

Ex. He got married.<ref>Smith, John.  The Book.  Cambridge Publishers, Boston, Massachusetts, 1909, p. 124</ref> Then he died.<ref>Smith, John.  The Book.  Cambridge Publishers, Boston, Massachusetts, 1909, p. 128</ref>

Although, often, if the info is all within a few pages, I'll just use one inline citation for all the pages.

Ex. He got married.<ref name=Smith>Smith, John.  The Book.  Cambridge Publishers, Boston, Massachusetts, 1909, pp. 124-128</ref> Then he died.<ref name=Smith/>

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Thanks Chase

seems like the simplest solution

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Many people would just put the 2nd citation as <ref> The Book, pg xx </ref>  without repeating all of the other information since it is included in another citation.

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LP - The problem with using that approach in a wiki is that, due to editing, the citation that contains the full info can go from being the 1st citation to that source to the 2d, 3d, etc. So while you gain in brevity, you increase the potential effort required to maintain the citation system in proper order. Its a trade-off and may depend on how often the profile may get edited.

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I think you have misinterpreted when I said 2nd, meaning additional citations, it doesn't matter what order they are in. They don't have to be consecutive.

The Book is the name of his source. You can't use Ibid, which can lose what source it refers to, but using the book name or author, as long as there is not another with same name or author is sufficient for someone to know what the reference points to.

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I have run into this problem and, I am new to this page too, and while exploring I found Sherwood-211. There is an example of a way it could be done. It's kind of an interesting way to set it up. I always wondered about the "span id" references I have come across. This made sense of them.

Rae

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Rae, that profile is mainly using the space pages that I mentioned above from the Family and Location Genealogies sources.

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This is the part to which I was referring:

Greenfield Hill Church Records, The New England Historical & Genealogical Register (New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Mass., 1915). Benjamin is mentioned on the following three pages:

• Vol. 69, Page 42: "Benjm Sherwood Junr Born: March: 1: 1701 Baptized mar: 30. 1701... Eleoner Wife to Benjm Sherwood"
• Vol. 69, Page 375: "Benjm Sherwood and Eleoner Bradly married feb. 9. 1724"
• Vol. 70, Page 39: "1763 19th Jany Benjamin Sherwood died almost 62 years old"

I had never seen a cite done this way. When I started on Wikitree, I was just copying the original citation, and changing the volume/page number every time I used the same source. It made for some long, repetitive source lists. Then I started adding the page number to the text, and just using one main source. I was interested by the above citation because it approached the problem from a different way.

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If that was in the Sources section, as it is on that profile, that would definitely show what was stated in each place. Since that is a subscription site that everyone doesn't have access to, it is stated what was found in each volume, which is great. Otherwise people wouldn't necessarily know what information was show exactly.

.  If that were to be put into inline citations, the entire source could be put into one inline citation with the appropriate vol, page, etc. and the other inline citations could state Greenfield Hill Church Records with the Vol, page, etc without the rest of the source, I think, because the user should be able to determine the rest of the source citation from the other citation that would be in the Sources section.

Answer 2

1. Create a source list that gives details of books, websites etc but without referring to specific pages.

2.  After each factoid, give a short indication of the book etc, and the specific page, with a link if possible.

E.g

==Biography ==

Blah blah blah (Norton, p. [URL 32]).  Blah blah blah (Norton, p. [URL 37]). etc

== Sources ==

<references />

* Norton, H.J.  ''The Great Norton Family'', self-published (1887).

* etc

If preferred, replace the ( ) with <ref> </ref> to push the inline citation into a footnote.  This is a matter of taste.

Comments

Thanks RJ.

This will work for the more complicated citations, that include volume numbers, sections, and pages.

Much appreciated!

Answer 3

I do like this:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wanton-60

where each reference note is "short form" to keep the profile from getting to cluttered. I put a longer citation in the master source list at the bottom. I assume some people prefer not to use the master source list at all and instead give a long form reference note for the first use and short form for subsequent uses.

Comments

Span tags created by gedcom files are often awful and confusing. I am not defending them, and they are probably one of the reasons people seem to distrust them.  My main point was there is no coding reason why they should not be routinely used.  When used correctly, span tags are one of the most useful tools we have on list of Recommended Tags.  They have many uses, however the PRIMARY use is for sources to be able to jump from a short in-line citation to a full and complete reference in a source list (as Barry is using them).

Johann Melchior Sorg - Uses short citations combined with a source list.

William White of the Mayflower - Uses short citations combined with a source list.  

Alice Freeman - Uses short citations combined with a source list.  Also uses span tags to jump to different sections (e.g. an error link at the top of the page jumps you down to the error section at the bottom).

Massachusetts VR to 1850 - span tags are used so you can click on a town and go to that town's VRs.  Each town also has a span tag that jumps you back to the TOP of the page.  This page is impossible without span tags.

I am not sure if I would bother asking admin.  They will tell you they are not recommended for sources, though they have no idea why.

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Thanks for doing that Linda! Like everyone else, I want to follow the rules... but what exactly are the rules on using span tags??  Hopefully your question will prompt a clear answer.

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I like it!

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Aha! Joe...now I totally understand your frustration with the unclear rules on whether a bibliography/source list should be used along with "references" (aka footnotes). As you know, most WikiTree profiles don't use both (the profiles I write do not). I'm sure this is done in order to make profiles easier to create for newer genealogists... and also in the interest of consuming less page space. However the current rules are contrary to any style guide I remember reading. Like I said before... I'd really like some rules and explanations for these style decisions. I'm just trying to follow "guidelines", which are currently very blurry.

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Yes, I want to use short, clean, non-messy in-line citations.
Anderson. Great Migration Begins. (1995): p. 1980.
(or just: Anderson, p. 1980.)

But if I do I want to use a bibliography/source list to also give a full a proper reference:

• Anderson, Robert Charles, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, vol. III, P-W. (Boston: NEHGS, 1995): page 1980-1981, biography of William White. American Ancestors.org LINK

The source list also gives me a place to store references before adding them to the narrative.  Span tags allow me to link the Short In-line Citation to the full and complete reference in the source list.

I wrote this soon after joining wikitree, not a word has changed on the Source Style Guide since:
G2G: Sources Style Guide need cleaning up?

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I was thinking the same effect could be achieved using reference tags, but with the new description of appropriate sources, perhaps the issue regarding span tags needs to be looked at again.

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I don't include a source list, I tend to use a full citation followed by short citations,but that does have the drawback that if you change the order of the text then the full citation has to be moved.  I agree that short citations followed by a bibliography would be a better solution  (not just a source list: sometimes I might  use something  that is not directly referred to in the bio)  

My problem is that when I look at the examples of formatting that achieve this result, I'm lost. Unfortunately It's not like writing in  Word  where one can link to tools that create footnotes and bibliographies in a variety of styles without too much effort.  There  have been times that I've not edited a profile because I could not understand the existing formatting. As it is the accepted 'simple' method,<ref> </ref> is  not understood by many members. Make it more complex and it narrows the field of potential editors.

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Hi everyone,

Thanks for all of your input. It is clear that there is no single, simple answer to my question. I am so glad I asked it. This has been a  great discussion.

I reviewed all of the answers/comments and looked at all of the examples. All have their valid points and do have the appearance of good order, clarity, and presentation.

However, wouldn't it be simpler( and less confusing) to input a citation fully once?- the first time it appears in the profile- name it and have a method (coding) that can indicate different volumes, page #'s, etc. that relate to the citation. Then have it listed only once in the sources section with separate lines indicating page #'s etc., with the corresponding citation #'s.

The many different methods are confusing. Shouldn't there be only one "accepted" method that everyone uses rather than many?

It would be more efficient, better for everyone and better for WikiTree.

Thanks again for all of the input.

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Helen, I don't see a drawback to what you are doing.  If you have the full citation not being shown as the first use of that citation, I don't think there is a harm in that, as long as the short citations can easily determine what the full citation is.

I agree that there are a few people that are creating a Bibliography section for the citations to go into and their formatting is definitely different than the majority of other profiles.

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Ron,

If I understand what you are saying, for all the citations to be grouped together by sources, the the footnote numbers would not be in order, which could make it harder to find what source was used with each fact.  Most sources are only used once in a profile, ie Birth, marriage and death, or when they are used more than once, there is no different vol and page being specified, so having them be shown in number order / when seen order, it makes more sense.  The multi volume and page use of the same source are not seen as frequently as the regular one use ones.

Answer 4

Are you using any genealogy source that is found in the Family Genealogies Space page  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Sources-Family_Genealogies   or the Locations space page https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Category-Source

Those pages have the 'span' entry that is entered into the Sources section, as well as the inline citation example to be used.  If you using one of those, the entry is created, just change it for the Vol / page being used.  If they are not, you can still use those as a format example that can be used to create the Source and inline citation.

Comments

Thank you for sharing this! I never knew it was there! I am so excited.  I have a Notes file that I started awhile ago where I copy in every bibliography/source that I write. That is what this is, but on a MUCH bigger scale than my file!  Thank you to everyone who had a part making these pages.

Missy 

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Rick Pierpont created it initially but if anyone finds something, it is easy to use one as an example to create new ones.

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Unfortunately, the help pages indicate we're not supposed to use the span tag for source citations.  The span tag comes in with gedcom uploads but we're not supposed to add them manually.  

See https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Recommended_Tags scroll down to angle brackets. 

Answer 5

I got an answer from Abby about wikitree using span.

• "Though span usage is allowed, it isn't recommended. When an option, it's preferable for people to use other ways to link to things, like ref tags. Like many other recommendations, we do not actively remove or disallow the span tags, but if someone comes along and updates them to something that is recommended, that update should remain."

I asked for clarification when a source is used multiple times with different pages / volumes.

• "Most of the time, people will list all the information in one post, 
• Example - "The Big Book of Information, 1959, Joe's Publishing House, Pages 3-10 (birth); 39 (marriage), 109-113 (end of life and death)
• It adds a few lines to the source, but then you aren't repeating the source over and over"

Personally, I haven't seen it listed as her example, but it could be done like that in a 'ref name' source citation.  For the Family and Location Genealogies, or anything else on Space Pages, the Space page and URL can be included with that citation. 

Comments

Can't say I've seen that done much.  Actually I quite like it.  You can easily add comments on specific statements in the source.

But the big advantage would be, you wouldn't need ref tags at all.  You could get rid of the annoying and ugly llittle numbers^[1][2][3] plastered all over the text.

Wikipedia is having a look-and-feel revamp.  I'm hoping they'll fix it so that citations are hidden unless you want to see them.

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If you want to use inline source citations, you would create it with the 1st 'birth' citation using a ref name.  Then the marriage and death would use the same ref name with the ending '/', so the footnote reference number would be the same and it would appear in the Sources section.

Edit - if you found the other volumes or pages later, you could always 'revise' the 1st citation definition later with the additional information.  If you want to include the specific information found, especially when it was found on a subscription site, that one citation would get rather lengthy.

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I would say I hate Abby's example and have never seen it done it that way.  It works for only a limited number of situations, and makes the inline citation unnecessarily long and messy.  I would guess this is her own personal style she is trying to impose on the rest of us.