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Archiver > APG > 2004-12 > 1101935645


From: "Chad Milliner" <>
Subject: Original sources
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 14:14:14 -0700


There could be several problems with images of sources, vs. examining the sources with your own eyes. First, the image may have been altered (not a major worry in most cases, but it is a minor concern for me with the Heritage Quest census images, since they have been cleaned up somewhat, and it is thus possible that what appeared to the cleaner to be a stray dot may have actually been meant to show an "i" instead of an "e" in a name.

To me, the greater concern is the reduction in the information value of the image. In almost all cases, microfilm is only monocromatic (color microfilm does exist, but is very rare and expensive). Thus, if an original source used colored ink to show emandations that were added lately, distinguishing those changes from the original can be very difficult. And of course, printed maps almost always used color to convey information.

Thus, I do think it is important to cite the repository. For microfilm, this would be the repository at which you examined the film (since some other repository could have a better/worse quality print). For online images, I cite the only provider. As alluded to above, I view the census images at ancestry.com as being of much better informative quality than the heritage quest ones. The Heritage Quest ones sometimes look better because the creators of those images "simplified" the images by converting grey-scale images into bi-tonal images, but I would rather look at an image that was more faithful to what was on the microfilm, even if by so doing, I have to endure looking at more "signal noise". But of course, I use HeritageQuest Online frequently, and also sometimes still load the census microfilm, when neither of the online services have a legible image of a particular census schedule.

So, after reflection, I do agree that microfilm and online images are a derivative source, not an original source, because of the conversion of what might have been a polychromatic original into a monocromatic image. The practical problem is that frequently it is not at all practical to examine anything other than an image of the original. Most of the original federal census records are no longer extant, and those nineteenth-century census records that are still extant are retrieved by NARA only if a reader can prove that the census microfilm is illegible. And of course most of us cannot go to College Park at the drop of a hat.


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