The "True Source"

There are a few activities where it's socially acceptable to think hard in American society -- playoff contingencies, chess, and genealogy among them. Genealogy can be a window on what I like to call "folk epistemology" AKA how we think most of the time.

Elizabeth Shown Mills includes a list of "problematic concepts" in the indispensable first chapter of Evidence Explained, including "definitive sources, "direct sources," "final conclusions." In his blog Planting the Seeds Michael Hait recently provided us with an amusing tour of several classic fallacies and how they appear in genealogy.

On LinkedIn there has been a usually cordial discussion that never quite dies called "The only TRUE source . . . ", under "Genealogical and Historical Research." In addition to the usual confusions created by the obsolete and imprecise terms "primary and secondary sources," many commenters there seem irresistibly drawn to the notion of a "true source." The term is not defined but it's probably close to ESM's "definitive source." My guess is that -- no matter how often someone tells us the obvious, that any source can be mistaken -- we really really want there to be a source somewhere, like a will or an original marriage record or an official anything, that would supposedly allow us to lay down our burden of proof and stagger off the field.

IMO that runs deeper than actually making a fallacious argument. It's more like an assumption embedded in language itself -- and equally hard to uproot. Happy New Year anyway!



Harold Henderson, "The 'True Source'," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 2 January 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Dueling Birth Dates: Is Your Database the Solution or the Problem?

Yesterday there was a thought-provoking discussion on LinkedIn's "Genealogical and Historical Research" group, based on a real-life genealogy question, "How do you decide how to enter an approximate birth year when you don't have the birth record and other sources vary?"

The question, and some of the answers, assume that we need to decide how to enter a birth year given varying evidence. Is this true?

First of all, how many problems of relationship or identity turn on knowing an exact birth date? Some do, for sure, but it's not a given.

Second, if not, why this urgency about deciding? Isn't it a sign that the tail is vigorously wagging the dog? Old-timers are used to filling out pedigrees and family group sheets; an increasing majority of genealogists are wedded to entering data into their database programs from Personal Ancestry File or Family Tree Maker on up.

Paper or electronic, I've used many of these forms and database programs; for years I spent much of my genealogy time breaking down the information I had into small enough components to enter each one into the program, and then tweaking it so that the outputs would be understandable. Some were better than others with problems of this sort.

But is a smoothly running database the reason why we started researching our families? I think not. The database is a tool, and doing our genealogy so that it will fit into the tool is not very different from a carpenter trying to saw a board using a hammer . . . because that's his favorite tool, and saws are too much trouble.

The real genealogical question here is how we deal with conflicting evidence of any kind. The right way doesn't have much to do with any form or database that I'm acquainted with (and if my acquaintance isn't wide enough, let me know). It has to do with listing out the different birth dates and where they came from, and evaluating each of those sources for evidence of reliability. Do we have the original source? Do other entries show some bias or impairment in the record creator? Did the informant have an incentive to deceive? And so on. For a checklist of ways to approach this task, read the last seven pages of the first chapter of Elizabeth Shown Mills's Evidence Explained, or visit the same-name web site for any recent discussions (such as this one on a brick-wall problem).

If our family or our problem dictates that we come to a best possible conclusion, a table or other format may help focus our thoughts. But in the end there is no substitute for the fifth prong of the Genealogical Proof Standard: a "soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion." No rule of thumb (such as relying cautiously on the earliest census record) is a good substitute for a well-documented, clearly reasoned, explicit statement explaining why our conclusion is the best, based on the weight of all the available evidence. Accept no substitute.



Harold Henderson, "Dueling Birth Dates: Is Your Database the Solution or the Problem?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 22 October 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]