Citations save you time and money If quality of research is of no interest, at least taking excellent notes of Who, What, When and Where (or as Tom Jones puts, it, Where In and Where At) about each source will save you endless time and money by preventing multiple identical searches of the same databases, books and repositories. And you will save money when you order the exact record you need, rather then the wrong one, to say nothing of saved travel and time costs! Bonus : We all get interrupted at times. Having complete and orderly notes will help us get back to work with far less fuss.  Quality Don't we all want to do the best quality research possible in the time we have to devote to our family history? If so, developing the habit of documenting your research in a timely and orderly way will save time, money and bother, and more important, give you the tools to do good analysis of what you've found.   In her classic Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts