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Elizabeth Shown Mills <small>(1944- )</small> [broken link<code>http://www4.samford.edu/schools/ighr/faculty/mills_e.html</code> [https://web.archive.org/web/20100102013137/ Internet Archive page]] is an eminent American genealogist who has [https://www.librarything.com/author/millselizabethshown&all=1 written extensively] about collecting, analyzing, and citing evidence in genealogical research and publications, including the books "''[https://lccn.loc.gov/97072909 Evidence! Citation and Analysis for the Family Historian]''" and an expanded version, "''[https://www.evidenceexplained.com/index.php/ Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace]''". (The 1st edition was awarded the ''Library Journal 2007 Best Reference''. A revised 3rd edition was released in 2018)
While most readers focus on the formats of the citations provided in the books, in reality every publisher has a style guide and Evidence Explained isn't used by any of them. The real value in these books is Mills's explanation of how to effectively analyze the evidence and how to integrate the many pieces of evidence (and Mills is well known for taking the "reasonably exhaustive search" requirement of the [https://web.archive.org/web/20170915234745/http://www.bcgcertification.org/resources/standard.html BCG's Genealogical Proof Standard] to the absolute limit) into a well supported conclusion.
Citation styles are the concern of published material, and will differ both for the medium and for the publisher. So long as the necessary information of creator, title, enclosing work (for e.g. magazine or jouranl articles), publisher (if published) or repository (if not), date, and details (like page number) are available in the citation, the style isn't very important to the reader. Publishers want all of their publications to have a consistent style and issue style manuals to help authors prepare their work.
