Evidence Notes

Some notes on using sources as evidence for the detailed facts represented in family trees.

• The only reality of genealogy is the relationship father + mother => child. There can be only one real family tree. All the relationships we work on are deductions from evidence. For example a document may say that John is the son of Jacob. Documents can be missing, incomplete, or erroneous, so the tree we document is a deduction and may change with time as research continues. Formal evaluation is called the Genealogical Proof Standard and has not been done for this site, although some notes discuss the logic used and the problems found.
   
• Evidence supporting a "fact" about an individual is cited with references at the bottom of that individual's page. The preferred choice, alternates, and possibly conflicting information, are all shown. A "fact" is only as good as its evidence documents. Evidence sources may conflict on a specific fact due to faulty memories, errors, or inclusion of a fact not actually attributable to that person, etc.
   
• Some persons included are speculative or otherwise uncertain. Usually it is their relationship to the family that is uncertain, not their existence or details. Including these persons is necessary to help research possibilities. Similarly, "facts" with no source citations are speculative or experimental.
    
• Relations other than marriage, such as father or sibling, are not yet adequately linked to their specific source citations, but are supported or implied by cited evidence.
   
• When other family trees are cited as the source, they may be based on good evidence or family lore, but should be considered unreliable until documentation is found and analyzed to support the claims. They help speed up research and also record a contact to other family researchers.
   
• Internet web sites gather and consolidate public information about recent individuals without citing their sources. Ages are calculated from birth dates and hence depend on the date the page was accessed. Relationships are guessed from those living at the same address at some point, so may not be actual immediate family. These sites are useful to find living persons whose information has not been released in other forms, but are weak as evidence until confirmed by other, better evidence.
   
• Before 1752 there may be date confusion. Britain changed from the Julian calendar (year beginning March 25) to the Gregorian calendar (year beginning January 1) in 1751. Records before 1752 are recorded using the old method (e.g. "4: 6 mon 1675" for 4 August 1675). Some sources may record two years when they occur between January 1 and March 24 (e.g. 21 Jan 1720/21) to show the Julian and Gregorian year, others simply choose one or the other year. When known or corrected, the 1720/21 format is used. Sources derived from a previous original may get the month wrong (e.g. give June 6 for "4: 6 mon 1675" instead of 4 August).
   
• More on Census Records. More on Cemetery Records