History Research: Primary, Secondary, & Tertiary Sources

Primary source - A document or object that was created by an individual or group as part of their daily lives. Primary sources include birth certificates, photographs, diaries, letters, embroidered samplers, clothing, household implements, and newspapers.

First person testimony - The account of a person who actually participated in an event.   Examples are oral history interviews, diaries, letters, photographs and drawings of events, and court testimony of an eyewitness.

Secondary source - Summaries, second-hand accounts, and analyses of events created by someone who did not witness the event, but may have read or heard about it.  Examples may include: books or articles written on a topic, artworks depicting an event, letters or diaries recounting a version of events told to the author by another source.

Second person or hearsay testimony - An account repeated by someone who did not actually participate in the event.  Examples are newspaper accounts from interviews of observers, letters that repeat a story told to the writer, drawings based on other people’s observations, or a book written about a topic.

Mixed sources - A document that is a primary source may contain both first person testimony and second hand testimony.  An example would be a diary entry that records a person’s eyewitness observations of an event (first person testimony) but also contains additional stories told to the writer by a family member (second hand testimony).  Newspapers often contain a mixture of first and second hand accounts.

It may depend on the question you are asking - The same document can be a primary and secondary source, depending upon the question you ask.  For example, a Baltimore newspaper’s account of Lincoln’s death that includes unattributed accounts of what happened at Ford’s Theater contains second hand testimony, if your question is what exactly happened at Ford’s Theater that night.  But if your question is how people in Baltimore heard about Lincoln’s assassination and what did they hear, then the newspaper is a primary sources for answering that question. What is a Primary Source? | Smithsonian Institution Archives (si.edu)

Across disciplines, contexts, and perspectives, the definition of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources differ. If you are unsure what your source is, ask your instructor or contact a librarian.