Joan, 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. I assume she got it from the source she told me, but you never know. She could have made a mistake with a page number or book number. Additionally, I would be pretending to have done legwork that I didn't do .... Joan would have done it and I would rude not to give her credit. If Joan lived by an old cemetery that she saw destroyed, but had written down some of our ancestors' inscriptions, Joan would be the source, not the tombstones since I didn't see them. If Joan had taken me to the cemetery, she wouldn't necessarily be my source, but I probably would point out in my notes that Joan led me to the cemetery. If Joan sent me a page of a book, she may have accidentally stapled the wrong cover page to it. Joan AND the book would be my source. Besides, Joan took the time and effort to send it to me. I didn't go to the library and find it myself. Maybe later I would, but in the meantime, Joan would get credit. If Joan copied some microfilm, the source would be the microfilm, the source of the microfilm, and Joan. Somebody gives me something and they get credit. It's only right for both of us. What if she typed up a passage from a book and wrote the wrong dates, we later found different dates for the same person in the same cemetery, which I fortunately attributed to our cousin Jane. We need to figure out which is right. Since I wrote both Joan and Jane into my sources, I can email both of them and we can all figure out where the error occurred. What if Joan has some information for which she accidentally lost the source, but seems to be good information full of great clues necessary to continue our work. We need to find the documentation, but are having a very difficult time. My source would be an email from Joan, noting she didn't remember her source.. If I later found the original source, I could email Joan and tell her. If I didn't write down Joan as a source, she'd be out of luck. Joan, then, assuming she is a nice person and doesn't want to take credit for my errors, either, would use the actual source PLUS the person who sent it to her. If I retrieved a pension file from Heritage Quest, my source would be Heritage Quest AND the original document. If Joan got it from Heritage Quest and sent it to me, Joan would also be my source. It DOES matter how I obtained my copy or how I obtained my information. If I get a newspaper article from Ancestry.com, the source is the newspaper AND Ancestry.com. If you go to the library, court house, or wherever, and you dig through books and archives and court documents, and you send them to someone else, that someone else is part of your source of information. Every time I send anything out and any time I receive anything I write onto the copy the date, the original source, and the name of the person who gave it to me, or my own name in case I got it myself. I sure hope that you aren't accepting information or documents from other people and not giving credit for their hard work. If so, you are using other people's research without due regard for them or for yourself. Get it? Association of Professional Genealogists, Rule #7 starts out .... "Give proper credit to those who supply information and provide assistance ..... " Debbie In this case (and this was my point all along) Joan's word ceases to be your source--the DOCUMENT or copy thereof becomes your source. It doesn't matter how you obtained the copy--that is your source. The only time "I got this from Joan" would be a valid source is if the source is privately held familly notes, journals, or Bible entries--something not available publicly where you are noting who recorded and maintains it.