The Chicago Manual of Stylewarns against using ellipsis at the beginning or ending of any quotations. However, some writers will place ellipses at the beginning or endings of quotations to indicate preceding or following text that has been omitted. This ensures that readers are aware of omissions ...
Secondly, I thought an ellipses mark was always required where words are missing, whether it be at the beginning, middle, or end of the quote. For example, say Lincoln’s original quote read, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth a new nation dedicated to the proposit...