Genealogists cite Bibles for family history records. Now I’m citing a dictionary, but it’s not for a definition of a word. It’s for my Mom’s college address.

I’ll probably cite it in a similar fashion to how one cites family Bibles, but there’ll be some twists. It’s “Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary,” (c) 1959 by G. & C. Merriam Co. Mom’s address is not on a numbered page, it’s on the page immediately following the inside from cover (the first flyleaf?) which is unpaginated–so I don’t have a page number to cite.

I’ll include the provenance–how I know it was my Mom’s dictionary. I had seen it a few times before she died and I remember her telling me that her parents got it for her. It’s got her name in it and I know it’s her handwriting as I’ve seen other copies of her handwriting at that stage of her life.

There’s screen shots of the cover, title page, and page with her name and address on it as illustrations for this post.

I’ve not yet decided if I’m actually keeping the whole dictionary or not. I know this is shocking to some, but SPACE is always a concern with all the stuff I have. If I just keep the sheet with her name/address, I’ll include where I got it. We’ll post an update when I’ve got a citation crafted.

I don’t usually cite a dictionary in my genealogy research, but there’s a first time for everything. I also need to cite this specific dictionary as I’m not citing any printed material in the dictionary, but additional content that has been added by the dictionary’s original owner. That’s how we cite family Bibles as well. In Bibles, we’re not citing any specific text, but rather the content that has been added by family members over the years.

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