Re: Citing Unpublished Sources
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In reply to:
Citing Unpublished Sources
Donna Schultz 7/03/03
Citations serve several purposes. First, they usually let other researchers double-check someone's work, if the reference is widely available. They also let other researchers know about reference books. If your gggg-uncle by marriage, Abner PACK, is in a book "Descendants of Eltweed Pomeroy and Malinda McCorkle", and I can borrow a copy from my state library, I may find some more PACK family members I'm related to. That saves me from having to look through the index of 17,000 family histories.
Second, they give people an idea of how accurate and thorough someone is. If my only sources are WFT, the LDS site and e-mail correspondence, you know to take my work with a grain of salt.
Third, they remind you where you got the data, if you stop working on one line for a while.
So - in this case, the author is your grandmother, the date "published" is an estimate and the description is whatever fits.
For instance:
"Smith, Elizabeth J - hand-written list of SMITH family birth, marriage and death data, written 1960 - 1980. Original lost. Photocopies in possession of . . ."
That tells you where you got it. It tells others they won't be able to check it out of the library. If, later on, it turns out your grandmother lied so she could get into the DAR, you will know you have to review all of her data via other sources. Not that she would; I was just using that as an example.