How to Add a Citation to a Digital Image

Genealogists have learned that "genealogy without documentation is mythology." We are taught to document our findings by entering a source citation for each piece of information we enter into our genealogy management software.

Some genealogists fall short when it comes to labeling each document, printed or digital, with its complete citation. In Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, Elizabeth Shown Mills explains:

"Full citations should appear on every photocopied or scanned document and on every page of a research report. To avoid altering the face of a photocopy, some researchers place the source label on the blank back side. As that photocopy goes into circulation, however, the inevitable happens: someone in the circulation chain fails to copy the reverse of the record. Thereafter, others have a document with no identification." (pages 66-67)

Sound familiar? Have you ever received a copy of an obituary, only it lacks the name and date of the newspaper?

It is simple to attach a citation to a printed document. Today's practice is to write the citation into the margin of the photocopy's face, or attach a printed label to it. However, as more and more documents are digitally distributed, this becomes more of a problem. Some researchers attempt to adequately identify a digital image by giving it a descriptive digital file name. Evidence Explained comments that "aside from the insufficient identification of the source, another problem ensues. As the file is distributed electronically, others in the chain are likely to change the file label to suit their own filing system, thereby eliminating all clues to the source."

Adding the citation to a digital image is certainly possible using your photo editing software. On the right is a scanned image of an 1865 Minneapolis, Minnesota city directory. Without the full citation, it is impossible to determine the correct year.

To add a citation to the image with your photo editing software, follow these general steps (not all photo editing software works exactly the same, but the same concepts apply. PhotoShop Elements 5.0 is demonstrated here):

1. If there is not enough space in the margin of the digital image, make space:

Click on the Image menu > Resize > Canvas size. Change the anchor and width (see image on below). Change the Canvas Extension color to white. Click OK.

2. Using the text tool, type the citation, rotate it, and place it appropriately in the margin.

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Obits and the story they can tell

 

 

I had been searching

relentlessly for this obit when I finally stumbled onto it at www.ancestry.com the other day,

. Since most of my father's family has already passed away or is as clueless as I am about the Texas Stauffer family,  this find was a treasure trove.

I knew my grandfather had worked for Humble Oil (AKA Exxon) in

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the early 1930's thru the 40's and had moved his family, my father, aunt and grandmother all over the US, I knew of only a handful of locations, all in Texas, where. This obit told me they lived in Hobbs New Mexico in May of 1940!  Texas neighboring state, involved in the oil boom at the time.

It also gave me many of the married surnames of his numerous sisters and locations of 2 of his surviving brothers. Stauffer men, it seems, back then had short lives. They either got shot in card games, or had car accidents. More in that at a later date...

Paw Paw lived the longest as far as I can tell to date, reaching his 70's before passing away. Old age for the wild Stauffer boys! They were handsome, very friendly with the ladies and had nerves of steel in there dealings and gambles they took in life.

Some were mild and settled on farming as a living but some had a bad case of wanderlust, like Paw Paw, and a wandering eye as well. I found a cousin, long dead of course, who worked as a merchant marine. He traveled all over the place, and I can only imagine the tales he could have told if he hadn't passed away suddenly in 1968. I am in search now for his children, or anyone who knew him back then. Since I  was just 10 when he passed, I may have some luck in finding a live relative!

Well, got to go, Happy and successful searching for all! Remember, read those obits!

A few brick walls were leveled with this short but sweet find!

Obits can mean the end of seemingly hopeless dead ends.

Remember to keep and read the whole page to get a better feel of the time line involved.. I try to get a copy of the whole edition if possible. More family info could lurk in the pages as well. One never knows!

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