In a message dated 7/23/2006 4:08:37 PM Eastern Standard Time, RoverLSmith@aol.com writes: You are wrong, Joan, and it could lead to your work lacking credibility. The person who supplied the documentation is part of the source. If a will or birth certificate is published in a book, that book AND that will are your source. If a person sent you some documentation, that person is part of your source. Why? There are several reasons. For one thing, you did not obtain the material itself. Um...Debbie- The above is an ENTIRELY different situation than what we were discussing earlier in this thread and to which I've been taking exception. Quoting from your preivious posts in this thread: "Perhaps Joan sent me a court document, a tombstone photo, etc. Maybe Joan copied some microfilm and sent it to me." and... "Of course I'm going to go to the primary source where I can, but if Joan sent me a copy of the primary source, what would be my source? It would be Joan PLUS the source since I didn't retrieve it myself." And... "I'm sorry. You are completely wrong. If Joan sent me the document, Joan AND the document would be my source. I did not retrieve the document. Joan did." In the above situations Joan was merely the vector (and due thanks) but she is NOT the source or any part of the source unless she altered the records she sent me in some way--such as translating or transcribing a document. Now, in the case of the tombstone photo mentioned above--that photo, assuming Joan took it, would be under her copyright and she obviously would have to grant me permission to use it--say on a webpage for example. But where I have obtained a document--such as a court record, copy of a vital record--it doesn't matter where I got it--that document IS my source. And there is where we are going to continue to disagree. I am in complete agreement that you can't attribute your source to a document you have never seen or only have seen copied in a book--in that case the source is HOW YOU KNOW THE INFORMATION--the book. But the same is not true if you have a photocopy of the pirmary record no matter HOW you obtained that record or who sent it to you. Joan