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Referencing style - Chicago: Primary Sources

A guide to using the Chicago citation referencing style for footnotes and reference lists.

Tips for Citing Primary Sources

When you cite primary source materials using the Chicago notation style, you need to pay extra attention to the differences between how you cite the primary source within the in-text reference note and how you cite it in the end-text reference in your bibliography.  

How you cite primary source material depends on where it has been sourced from; that is whether it has been sourced from an archival collection or a secondary source and whether you are using published or unpublished materials. 

In most cases, though you fully cite the primary source in the in-text notation, the reference in your end-text bibliography will only refer to the archival collection within which the primary source was accessed. However, if you only cite one item from a collection archive or secondary source, then you will need to also fully cite it in the bibliography. 

Some types of primary source materials, especially those that have not been formally published, have specific requirements when creating titles from them.  See this link to view a summary of the Chicago Style Rules as they relate to creating notes and bibliographic references for primary sources. 

 

Primary Sources

 

Material type Note (footnote) example

Subsequent note entry

(see CMOS 14:30)

 Bibliography example
Book or diary/journal/memoir published in book form
 

   15. Australian colonist, A Description of the Settlement of King George's Sound, in the Colony of Western Australia (London: Smith, Elder, 1846), 32-33. 

See The Chicago Manual of Style Online chapter 14 section 128 for information on books published before 1900.

Please check with your Unit Coordinator for their preference on including/omitting publisher details for older books. 

See the Books and Ebooks section of the Chicago referencing style guide for variations when citing books. 

    21. Australian colonist, Description of the Settlement, 35.  Australian colonist. A Description of the Settlement of King George's Sound, in the Colony of Western Australia. London: Smith, Elder, 1846. 
Letter in published collection 

   5. Mary Anne Barker to Guy Broome, Albany, 28 May, in Letters to Guy (London: Macmillan and Co., 1885), 15.  

See The Chicago Manual of Style Online chapter 14 section 111 for information on letters in published collections.  

    7. Mary Anne Barker to Broome, 28 May, 17.  Barker, Mary Anne. Letters to Guy. London: Macmillan and Co., 1885. 
Photograph in published collection     6.  East Perth., n.d., in Album of Western Australia (Perth, WA: B. Stein & Co., 1892).     10. Album of Western Australia.  Album of Western Australia. Perth, WA: B. Stein & Co., 1892. 

Unpublished document in physical archival collection

 

 

   19. Ambrotype, Portrait of two unidentified young girls [ca. 1860], BA2430/11,  Robert Fairbairn Photograph Collection, State Library of Western Australia. 

 

   25. Death certificate of James Somerville, 15 June 1926, no. 008644 (1926), District Hornsby, Registry of Birth Deaths and Marriages, Chippendale, NSW. 

 

   5. Mary Annette Bleechmore nee Johnston, scrapbook, n.d., ACC4167A, Clifton Family Papers, Battye Library, State Library of Western Australia.

 

   15. Pencil sketch by Louisa Clifton,  1840, ACC 4168A, Clifton Family Papers, Battye Library, State Library of Western Australia.

See The Chicago Manual of Style Online chapter 14 section 223 for information on manuscript titles. 

For more examples go to the Chicago Manual of Style Online: Chapter 14, section 221 to 230.

   23. Ambrotype [ca. 1860], Fairbairn Photograph Collection. 

 

 

   27. Death certificate, 15 June 1926, District Hornsby. 

 

 

   9. Scrapbook, n.d., Clifton Papers. 

 

 

   20. Pencil sketch, 1840, Clifton Papers. 

Robert Fairbairn Photograph Collection. State Library of Western Australia.

 

 

District Hornsby, Registry of Birth Deaths and Marriages, Chippendale, NSW. 

 

 

 

Bleechmore nee Johnston, Mary Annette. Clifton Family Papers. Battye Library, State Library of Western Australia. 

 

Clifton, Louisa. Clifton Family Papers, Battye Library, State Library of Western Australia.

OR (if citing only one document from the collection:)

Clifton, Louisa. Pencil sketch, 1840. Clifton Family Papers. Battye Library, State Library of Western Australia. 
Unpublished letter in physical archival collection

   12. James W. Turner to Selina Turner, 9 October 1844, ACC 226A,
MN 350, Turner Family Papers, State Library of Western Australia.

 

   4. Robert Fairbairn to Frances Jane Taylor, Newcastle, November-December 1876, ACC 8584A/1.4, The Fairbairn Family Papers, Battye Library, State Library of Western Australia. 

See The Chicago Manual of Style Online chapter 14 section 228 for information on unpublished letters. 

   13. James W. Turner to Turner, 9 October 1844, Turner Papers. 

 

 

   6. Robert Fairbairn to Taylor, November-December 1876, Fairbairn Papers. 

Turner, James W.. Turner Family Papers, State Library of Western Australia.

 

 

Fairbairn, Robert. The Fairbairn Family Papers. Battye Library, State Library of Western Australia. 

OR (if citing only one letter from the collection):

Fairbairn, Robert to Frances Jane Taylor. November-December 1876. The Fairbairn Family Papers.  Battye Library, State Library of Western Australia.

 

Creating Notes (Footnotes) using Microsoft Word

By default, Microsoft Word will format footnotes at the end of the page with a superscript number and no indent.  

For the Chicago Notes and Bibliography style, you will need to manually change the font size of footnote number and indent it.

See our instructions on how to create a Note (footnote) in Word and manually edit the format according to the Chicago Notes and Bibliography style.

Please check with your Unit Coordinator to see if their preference is to use the formal Chicago style footnote formatting or the default Word format.

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