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Birth Certificate (or death or marriage)
I was just wondering what everyone else is using for citation of certificates. When I did a Diploma course through a local university they gave us a referencing guide based on Chicago "notes and bibliography" style. So for a certificate we were told to do:
Birth Certificate of Myrtle Lovelock, born 18 July 1888, Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, 2805/1888.
I've played around in Zotero using book section, encylopedia, document trying to mimic what we were told to do. The best I've come up with is the following:
‘Birth Certificate of Dorcas Stokes, Born 19 November 1898’. General Register Office, Southport, England, UK, 1898. 375/1898. Willenhall, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire.
If I remove the date field to remove the 1898 after UK I end up with n.d. If I put 375/1898 in the date field I end up with 1898-375A.D. I just think it looks messy with 1898. 375/1898.
The attachment shows how I have the fields in Zotero. Any other suggestions?
Thank you in anticipation of helping me with my need for perfection :/
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Great question, Megan. I have posted the question at Zotero, to see if there is a way to override the "n.d." While it's usually helpful and appropriate in CMOS style to insert the "n.d." when a record has no date, it doesn't take into account that the record actually IS dated in this case, but you've already said it. I'll see what comes back.
Zotero says it is going to force in the "n.d.," if you don't have a value there. I will put it on our wish list, and see if they can't offer a way to override it in future. Meanwhile, you could put in something you'd easily and obviously want to take out when you got ready to publish from it--something line "[remove]." That way, it's an easy search and replace when you get ready to publish.
Hi Megan,
If I remember correctly the 375/1898 is a certificate number. I might try putting no. for "number" in the date field.
Unfortunately Zotero guards that field as a date ferociously. It will still try to turn it into a year. Even worse, it wants to make 375 an AD date. It shows "1898 375AD." I tried putting text in the field, too, to trick it, and it still wanted 375 to be 375AD.
This is what I get with just no. in the date field without any numbers.
"Birth Certificate of Dorcas Stokes, Born 19 November 1898" General Records Office, Southport England, UK, no. 375/1898. Willenhall, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire.
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Great thinking!
I wanted my date to be formatted as 15 May 2012, but the CMOS citation is in the format May 15, 2012. Is there a place in Zotero to set the date preference for the CMOS citation?
I'm so glad you noticed this, Linda. I've always published in CMOS style, which formats the dates the American way. There is not a setting that changes the date. It's controlled by the style. But Zotero does preserve the date the way we're keying it in. That's hopeful.
I'm going to work on this from two ends, and see if we can reasonably quickly get to the place where this formats it in the standard genealogy format. I think it's time to look at making a copy of the CMOS style with a genealogy variation and begin to make it do what we need on things like this. It's a long-term commitment, but the genealogy field has been needing it for years. This would mean, as I understand it, that a new style will show up in the style list--probably called "Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition (genealogy)."
I'll start working on that, but there will be a learning curve for the moment. Meanwhile, I can probably write a Word macro that will alter the dates when you get ready to prepare a document for publication. That can be our short-term solution.
I'll get to work on it. You guys will just key in the dates in Zotero by the standard genealogy format. And for the moment, we'll let a macro fix them in the document after the fact. (Are you using Word, I should ask? You're on Mac, am I remembering?)
Thank you everyone for the great replies - what a lovely, supportive, helpful forum! I definitely will try the no. to get around this issue for the time being. That is until Donna uses her wiles and convinces Zotero to start formatting especially for us genealogists 😉
