Your Stripped Bare Guide to Citing & Using History Sources, by Elizabeth Shown Mills

Sources provide information, from which we identify evidence for analysis. A conclusion drawn from sound analysis may then stand as proof. In these two sentences, Elizabeth Shown Mills defines the proper use of sources to come to valid conclusions in historical research. Your Stripped Bare Guide, Mrs. Mills’ latest work on citing and using historical and genealogical sources, is an abbreviated distillation of the evidence analysis she outlines in minute detail in her classic work, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, Fourth Edition. 

Ms. Mills new book lays out the essentials you need to know to do reliable history research. Here the author prescribes Thirteen guidelines for evidence analysis to help you select reliable sources and evaluate your findings. Also central to the work are Fourteen easy-to-follow templates that provide you with patterns for citing any kind of history source, online, from any corner of the globe. These are the same templates that Elizabeth Mills created for the 2024 Fourth Edition of her magnum opus, EVIDENCE EXPLAINED. Finally, Your Stripped Bare Guide to Citing and Using History Sources represents a completely new replacement for her 1997 publication, Evidence! Citation and Analysis for the Family Historian. And like that book, it also functions as the genealogist’s lighter, portable tool for working with sources when away from home or just consulting the guidelines.