By now you have probably figured it out, but it bears repeating: you really want to document sources. (Yes, it takes time. Doing things right usually does.)

I didn't document my sources at first,. and still find myself unsure why I assigned him that birth date or her those parents -- for far too many ancestors. Now documenting sources  is darn near a religion with me. Documenting sources works. If not for your reader, do it for yourself.

The alternative is worse. Show me an un-sourced genealogy and I'll show you junk -- no matter how wonderful it is in other ways. 

(And if it doesn't conclude with an index listing everyone's name alphabetically, to make it easy to find what (who) I need, I curse the author as lazy and inconsiderate. But that's another story.)

National Genealogy Societies have been singing Sourcing's praises for decades, but their words fell on deaf ears until recently because genealogy before computers was already too hard.

Thankfully, modern genealogy programs automate most of the work in documenting your sources (and automatically index your work). So my task is simply to convince you to use the included tools.

My brother was an only child, part 2: No one forgives an inaccurate genealogist who tries to hide her errors by not documenting her claims. If you are nothing else, be brutally honest. You might as well get credit for those parts you got right.

Without a computer that means "write a footnote." With a computer, your genealogy software will write the footnote for you -- if you enter the prerequisite information about your source.

Specifically, enter the title of the book, transcript, microfilm, or other object that provided the data in question. Be specific: enter the page number, the reel number or title, the cemetery's name and plot number, etc. Also list where you found it: the name of the Archive, cousin, city and province, whatever. And finally, enter the date you found it.

Here's an example:
* John's obituary in Simcoe Reformer, 19 Jul 1939 issue, page 4, on microfilm at the Eva Brook Donly Museum, 109 Norfolk St. South, Simcoe, on 22 Mar 2009

Sourcing provides perspective when you find conflicting data later and want to resolve the conflict.

Here's John's Short Course on Sourcing
Here are some examples.
For more: External Link: Cyndi's List: Citing Sources