Citations

[RDYork]

Just a procedural question:

When citing previous gen work (family histories) that have their own citations/references, do you just cite the gen work or the original source?
At this time, I am just citing the gen work, figuring if someone wants deeper citations they can reference that work themselves.

[Blaise A. Darveaux]

You will get more opinions on this than there are people doing genealogy. LOL

Thinking about this, it is a bit like the engineering saying: Low cost, quick speed, and high quality: you can have any two but never all three.

For example, I am adding thousands of relatives from an online source that USUALLY gives the original source, but often it is highly abbreviated and would slow me down anyway, so, like you, I just site the online source for people to know where I got the information that I have. Most of the people I am entering are far removed from me and the information I am getting was obtained from native language speakers, so I would trust them more than I would trust myself in deciphering hand writing in a language I don't know from 400 year old documents.

However, research that I am doing that no one else has done, putting together life histories that have never been assembled before, and quick time isn't essential, it is quite important to site original sources as much as you can. Ultimately it is your decision for your particular work.

[eventide]

In the words of Elizabeth Shown Mills, "cite what you use." If you are using an online source then cite that, although it might reference the original so that someone can find it if needed.
But she might also say to find the original source and cite that when available.