Sourcing with Unpublished works

Question

Is it okay to use a source that is in a book form that is not published

I have a family tree book that has been put together by relatives and most likely will not be publicated

Is this an usable source?

Comments

All sources have some level of value.  The level of value is based on a number of things, such as the type of information in the source, how independent or objective the source is, the reliability of the source, etc.  We consider government, court, and church records to have high value because they are usually free from subjective influence AND they are open for public inspection.  Private information is usually considered to have less value because it's not available for public inspection and review, and without independent review it is more likely that it could be recorded with mistakes or deliberately altered.

That being said, each source must be judged on its own merits.  It would be most beneficial if your book were published, even if it's self-published on a site like scribd.com, so that it can be inspected and compared against other sources.  If you can't publish the book as a whole, then you should include information about the original source of the information.  For instance, if you're including a story from the book, include the name of the person who added the story to the book.  

Wherever the information comes from, make all attempts to provide a complete trail of how it got from the original person to your audience.

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Yeah I contacted about 3 hours ago the person who wrote it I a bit hesitant about publication as there very personal information recorded eg Current addresses/phone numbers

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You're right not to publish current addresses and phone numbers.

Answer 1

A source is a source, and if that is where you got your information then you should put it down.  You should very clearly indicate the nature of the reference as you have done here.

Personally, I would consider unpublished personal family research (even in book form), which has no real possibility of being reviewed, as equivalent to a broken link to an ancestry.com tree.  It is not necessarily wrong, but it is still unreliable as a source (to me, as an outsider to your family).

Sources are wherever you got your information from.  Obviously, some sources are better than others, but if I was to come across your research and your family I would want to know exactly where the genealogical information came from (even if it is just some book that Uncle Bob wrote).

Answer 2

Does the book site the sources that were used to generate it?  Are the people in the book of the same time period of the book, that is did the person writing the book personally know the the people he/she was writing about.  Was it written all at the same time or was each entry created as an event (birth, death, or marriage) occurred .  This is how you evaluate any genealogical work.  Same time period - good, Know the people - good, written as they occurred - good.  Otherwise its a nice beginning to do more research and prove it.

Comments

Well a-lot of the information is quite current 1950s - 2014 However the writer wasn't born till about 55 but she would know personally every person accept 1 there is no sources given with the book since lots of it current there would be little information through "ancestry etc"

I would speculate that most listed are alive and has record of over 285 people through 4 generations However I won't be adding most of them just a few