Methodology Monday with a golden oldie in Kentucky (NGSQ)

It just takes a while for people to "get" indirect evidence. I read and annotated and discussed "The Parents of Joseph Rhodes of Graves County, Kentucky" in the March 2009 NGS Quarterly five years ago. Most of my notes have to do with picking at the details, and I may have been looking for a full account of the family rather than a proof.

When I read it now I'm trying to figure out the logical skeleton of that proof. Tom Jones identifies four common logical skeletons in Mastering Genealogical Proof: single hypothesis, multiple hypotheses, building blocks, and "syllogisms" (AKA if-then statements). Basically the article follows the subject, Joseph Rhodes, forward from his first known record appearance in 1831. Then it follows an older 1831 neighbor, Benjamin Rhodes, forward from his revolutionary war service. There's direct evidence here involving his Benjamin's Edens in-laws, but in the end the author has sifted out eight shiny nuggets of indirect evidence that Benjamin was Joseph's father.

Each individual piece could be explained away; to explain away all eight would be a heroic task. Still, I know good genealogists who don't quite seem to believe in indirect evidence. It just seems fragile somehow -- although it would be much harder to forge, especially given the diversity of records involved in this case.

Reading the article now, I can't help but think the author had a hypothesis in mind for Benjamin as soon as it appeared he was nearby and the right age to be Joseph's father. But the article is presented  more in a building-blocks format, in which first Joseph's and then Benjamin's life stories are surveyed for evidence pro or con. The way the building blocks are constructed -- mostly following the two lives in chronological order -- may make it easier to grasp than other articles with the same skeleton.



Sarah R. Fleming, "Indirect Evidence for the Parents of Joseph Rhodes of Graves County, Kentucky," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 97 (March 2009): 5-15.

Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday with a golden oldie in Kentucky (NGSQ)," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 19 May 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday on the far side of the Ohio River

I suppose all genealogists start out looking for records that will tell them the answers to their questions. And sooner or later we encounter ancestors who thoughtlessly failed to leave any such records. At that point we either have to take up tiddlywinks or figure out how to build a convincing case from what a lawyer might call circumstantial evidence, using what the pros call the "genealogical proof standard."

But it's one thing to rattle off the 5 elements of the GPS (research exhaustively, cite, correlate, resolve contradictions, and write) and it's another thing to actually do it. When is the proof good enough? I need examples, and the March 2009 issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly opens with a nice one by Sarah R. Fleming on "indirect evidence for the parents of Joseph Rhodes [1809-1851] of Graves County, Kentucky." (No, it's not on line. If you or your library don't subscribe, why not?)

No known evidence says who Joseph's parents were, perhaps because Graves County had two 19th-century courthouse fires. But Benjamin and Sabrina (Edens) Rhodes were married in time to be his parents and were in the area when he was born; a young man in his age range was in their household in 1820 and 1830; Joseph and Benjamin bought adjacent parcels of land in Graves County in 1831 . . .

There's more but that will do for a start. As the evidence piles up the question begins to form in your mind, if they weren't father and son, what were they?

Read the whole thing to see how it adds up -- and how the author unearthed the puzzle pieces in the first place by "backtracking Joseph's possible relatives across state and county lines for four generations and finding pertinent records." Nobody ever said it would be easy.