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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
Adrian Bruce
On Thu, 7 May 2020 at 23:58, Jan Murphy ... wrote:
... I'm going to be very persnickity here but bear with me while I clarify... Ach - yes, you got me there. I called the mother the primary source, when, as you say, I should have referred to the *info* that she provided as primary. And, though you'll have to take my word for it, I *was* trying to get it right. I can't say the habits of a lifetime but certainly it's difficult to shake the habits of a couple of decades of family history. Adrian
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
Ron Chapman
I too have numerous instances of Documents that might be
considered primary evidence being wrong, deliberately or
otherwise. Our best stab at proof will be combining several
sources. For instance I have assemble several items of information that to my satisfaction show who my grandfathers paternal grand parents are, even though I do not know where and when my grandfather was born, nor who either of his parents were. Every official document I have for him tell lies! Ron
On 07/05/2020 15:21, Jenny Cochrane via
groups.io wrote:
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
Jan Murphy
Bob -- it is confusing! Because journalists and historians use the word one way, and Mills' system uses it a different way, and if I make reference to anthropology, you get even more collisions of words being used for different things depending on the context. Mills introduced the division between the status of a source (original/derivative) vs. the quality of the information contained within the source (which is usually a document or book, not a person). If you are using the Evidence Analysis Process Map, the source is the document. It used to be the practice to call the person giving the information the INFORMANT. (This word has acquired some negative connotations over the years, so some people don't care to use it anymore.) Adrian's 90-year-old mother is not a "source" unless she is being referred to as such by a journalist. For genealogical purposes, the interview Adrian did with her (captured either by recording, transcription, or both, properly cited with the date of the interview) is the source. "Personal knowlege of Adrian's mom, recorded on [date]" etc. I understand Adrian's reservations about the quality of the information in his hypothetical interview, but if his mother was an eyewitness to the event, the information is still primary no matter how distant and degraded it might be. In my example with the data-source language, eyewitnesses would say "I saw this" not "someone said this happened" (unless they were trying to be evasive).
On Thu, May 7, 2020 at 4:43 PM <rmwhunter@...> wrote:
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
@BobH1
Jan You’ve just confused me! First you say “primary refers to the *information* not the source (container)." But then you go on to say in your final paragraph that the information is primary because of the status of the source (mother was a participant). By inference the information would not be primary if the mother was not a participant. Thus, surely, “Primary” refers to the status of the source. BobH
From: family-historian@groups.io <family-historian@groups.io> On Behalf Of Jan Murphy
Sent: 07 May 2020 23:57 To: family-historian@groups.io Subject: Re: [family-historian] Genealogical Proof Standard
Adrian --
I'm going to be very persnickity here but bear with me while I clarify
1) Calling your 90 year old mother "a primary source" is journalism usage. In ESM's evidence anaylysis map, primary refers to the *information* not the source (container). 2) There are human languages which have data source as a required element ('linguistic postulate'), just as English has singular and plural. If you were speaking such a language, you would describe your mother's utterance as "someone said so" (instead of your own direct knowledge, or the historical "No one alive could know" etc.) If your mother chose to describe her own direct knowledge as "someone said so" rather than asserting her own direct knowledge, that could be viewed as deceptive, etc. In short, the categories are what they are, whether we use them correctly or not.
It's confusing enough dealing with the collision of primary/secondary being used two different ways on either side of the Atlantic and being used differently depending on what discipline we're in. You might consider that the information is only as valid as a secondary source, but if your mother was a participant, the information is still primary information, just low-quality because of the distance.
On Thu, May 7, 2020 at 5:34 AM Adrian Bruce <abruce6155@...> wrote:
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
Jan Murphy
Adrian -- You might call the 90y old mother a primary I'm going to be very persnickity here but bear with me while I clarify 1) Calling your 90 year old mother "a primary source" is journalism usage. In ESM's evidence anaylysis map, primary refers to the *information* not the source (container). 2) There are human languages which have data source as a required element ('linguistic postulate'), just as English has singular and plural. If you were speaking such a language, you would describe your mother's utterance as "someone said so" (instead of your own direct knowledge, or the historical "No one alive could know" etc.) If your mother chose to describe her own direct knowledge as "someone said so" rather than asserting her own direct knowledge, that could be viewed as deceptive, etc. In short, the categories are what they are, whether we use them correctly or not. It's confusing enough dealing with the collision of primary/secondary being used two different ways on either side of the Atlantic and being used differently depending on what discipline we're in. You might consider that the information is only as valid as a secondary source, but if your mother was a participant, the information is still primary information, just low-quality because of the distance. On Thu, May 7, 2020 at 5:34 AM Adrian Bruce <abruce6155@...> wrote: Jan - I'm fairly certain that you and I would be in 99% complete
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Re: Ancestry Message service - update
Sheila Beer
See enclosed screenshot Click on 'Sent'
On Thu, 7 May 2020 at 18:12, John & Carol King via groups.io <jandcking145=sky.com@groups.io> wrote:
.png)
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Re: Ancestry Message service - update
John & Carol King
I cannot find my sent messages any more, amy ideas?
On Thursday, 7 May 2020, 17:24:38 BST, Sheila Beer <sheilamarcelb@...> wrote:
I suggest everyone looks for 'hidden' messages sent to themselves How do we do that? You can look in your SENT file for any sign of messages you have not seen or answered. You can also use the 'search' facility. I suggest everyone looks for 'hidden' messages sent to themselves
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
Julia Vokes
Thank you Jenny for sharing your story. I’m sure it will resonate with many of us!
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
Julia
On 7 May 2020, at 15:21, Jenny Cochrane via groups.io <cochranejenny@...> wrote:
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Re: Ancestry Message service - update
Sheila Beer
I suggest everyone looks for 'hidden' messages sent to themselves How do we do that? You can look in your SENT file for any sign of messages you have not seen or answered. You can also use the 'search' facility. I suggest everyone looks for 'hidden' messages sent to themselves
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Re: Ancestry Message service - update
ColinMc
I suggest everyone looks for 'hidden' messages sent to themselves How do we do that?
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
Jenny Cochrane
I am finding this discussion very interesting and reflects many features of a brick wall it took me years to solve. A woman in my family tree built a whole new life for herself in order to drag herself up the social ladder and conceal her rather dodgy personal history. Born in the slums of Dundee in 1863, she always claimed she was born in France, but fortunately she did give an accurate DOB. Her first son was illegitimate but she always claimed a spurious surname for him and a putative father who I may or may not have identified correctly. She lied about her marriage on several census to conceal the fact that her 2nd son was also illegitimate (born to her eventual husband). So in theory, she could be seen as a primary source, but in fact she was entirely untrustworthy and lied consistently on numerous official documents. It was only when her son included her maiden name as her middle name (another fib) on his WW1 next of kin record that I followed that as a lead. It led to his maternal grandmother and hence to the real and honestly recorded, Scottish birth record and his mother's true identity. Incidentally when this woman did eventually marry, she gave her mother's occupation as "annuitant" when in fact she was a linen worker who died in the workhouse! It was the accumulation of many documents across 3 generations that led me to discern truth from lies and be sure I had conclusive proof. Jenny
On Thursday, 7 May 2020, 13:34:49 BST, Adrian Bruce <abruce6155@...> wrote:
Jan - I'm fairly certain that you and I would be in 99% complete agreement about how to process a particular source of information. I agree wholly with Thomas Jones and delight in Judy Russell's "It depends..." The important thing is the analysis and I do worry that we obsess over concepts like primary & secondary to the detriment of that analysis - an obsession that is not helped by the different definitions that we use. You might call the 90y old mother a primary source and I might not but we would both be thinking of the memory issue, etc. Or, to take another example, someone in the US might refer to a politician's memoirs as primary (they were there) while I might call them secondary (they have a stake in them) but both of us should be thinking about whether there is any reputational advantage to the politician being economical with the truth. Adrian
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
Hilary
There are many times when we are analysing the records we use that we could say that someone was being economical with the truth. Providing proof and discussing the reason why we have put more weight on one piece of information rather than another is something we should all be doing when there are conflicting pieces of information. Evidentia was created to help us deal with this. Hilary
On Thu, 7 May 2020 at 13:34, Adrian Bruce <abruce6155@...> wrote: Jan - I'm fairly certain that you and I would be in 99% complete
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
Adrian Bruce
Jan - I'm fairly certain that you and I would be in 99% complete
agreement about how to process a particular source of information. I agree wholly with Thomas Jones and delight in Judy Russell's "It depends..." The important thing is the analysis and I do worry that we obsess over concepts like primary & secondary to the detriment of that analysis - an obsession that is not helped by the different definitions that we use. You might call the 90y old mother a primary source and I might not but we would both be thinking of the memory issue, etc. Or, to take another example, someone in the US might refer to a politician's memoirs as primary (they were there) while I might call them secondary (they have a stake in them) but both of us should be thinking about whether there is any reputational advantage to the politician being economical with the truth. Adrian
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
Jan Murphy
Before I address this, I'd like to drop in one more link to Dr. Thomas W. Jones' article Perils of Source Snobbery from OnBoard 18 (May 2012). On Wed, May 6, 2020 at 2:55 PM Adrian Bruce <abruce6155@...> wrote:
Note what Elizabeth Shown Mills says in Quicklesson 17: Primary information: that is, information based on firsthand knowledge. Primary informants tell us about events or circumstances they personally participated in or witnessed. They might provide that information at or about the time the event occurred or at a later date. A time lapse might affect the quality of the recollection, but it does not alter the primary nature of the information. Of course we take the time lapse between the event and the recording of the event into account. But that's a separate issue from whether someone was an eyewitness to the event vs. having "somebody said so" knowledge. And no matter what terms we use to refer to it, we have to correlate the information with other evidence and analyze what we've found. If we're talking about a relationship found in a record, for instance, without analysis we're only doing kinship acceptance, not kinship determination (see Dr. Thomas W. Jones' handout for his FamilySearch class on Inferential Genealogy (PDF Download) (Wiki article) I have to say that code values in FH for original / derivative and direct / indirect / negative from US practice would be most welcome. Direct / indirect / negative evidence (i.e. "the dog that did not bark", which is not the same as negative findings "I searched but I couldn't find a record") applies when we are answering a research question. This might be more appropriate for a research report instead of flagging things up in Family Historian. However, even there, once I start thinking about it, Mills says, in her article “Working with Historical Evidence,” [pages 180-181]: Above all, the researcher must resist the temptation to view “proof” as the sum of an equation. Validity cannot be calculated by a simple formula such as Original + Primary + Direct > Derivative + Secondary + Indirect Nor can validity be quantified by assigning points to these basic elements. Rather, the bottom line is this: Can the evidence drawn from this source’s information be considered accurate? Can it be trusted as a credible indication of what the original facts The situation can be summed up nicely by a phrase often used by Judy G. Russell: "It depends." If you have a derivative source such as the Massachusetts 5-year indexes of Births, Marriages, or Deaths, the information in the index is a pointer to the original records. We have to take into account that the primary information in the original source has undergone at least one round of copying and perhaps more before we get to the printed volumes that we can view on Ancestry. We need to understand the purpose for which the index was made (despite what many hobbyists might think, it wasn't created for genealogists to copy & paste into their databases). But the information in the index is still primary information. Contrast this with the information in the NEHGS' Vital Records to 1850 books, which gathers information from a wide variety of sources. I have a birth date which can be found in the volume Vital Records of West Springfield to the year 1850 -- it was taken from a gravestone record (memorial inscription) in a cemetery. This is how I have a record for someone born in Germany before 1850 in this record of information from Massachusetts. Whichever way you look at it, this is secondary information -- the stone was likely ordered by descendants who were born after the event, it was created long after the deceased's birth date, and another layer or more of copying has happened in the creation of the printed volume.
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
Ian Thirlwell <fh.thirlwell@...>
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
-----Original Message-----
From: Adrian Bruce Sent: Wednesday, May 6, 2020 10:55 PM To: Family Historian Groups.io mailing list Subject: Re: [family-historian] Genealogical Proof Standard Philosophy warning:- On Wed, 6 May 2020 at 19:50, Jan Murphy ... wrote: ... You may already be aware that the Strathclyde course (and Family Historian itself) uses the term "primary" and "secondary" in a way that differs from the usage in the USA where people are following the model of Elizabeth Shown Mills and her book Evidence Explained. ...I've always thought that there was a little more to it than that, Jan. As Mike says, the Primary / Secondary attribute sits on the link between "fact" and source-record, so it is, quite naturally, easily applied to the particular information inside the source relevant to that fact. A census schedule, for instance, contains primary info about occupation (say) and secondary about a birth. The bit that I can't get my head around is that the US definition of Primary (info) appears to depend solely on whether the knowledge is first hand or not. So a 90y old mother would be regarded as providing Primary info about the birth of her child 70y previously. Regardless of any memory problems that might, or might not, apply. The typical UK definition of primary puts an extra criteria (criterion?) about being close to the event, so would regard the 90y old mother as providing secondary info, directly encouraging a degree of scepticism about the info being provided. I have to say that code values in FH for original / derivative and direct / indirect / negative from US practice would be most welcome. (A lack of code values doesn't stop you thinking about those concepts, of course). However, even there, once I start thinking about it, things start to crumble a bit. I did once ask in another place (BetterGEDCOM? Don't think it was StackExchange...) about the IGI and other indexes. The process of creating an index clearly creates a Derivative. What is the information though? Primary or Secondary? It doesn't make sense to drop it down to Secondary, because that's simply repeating the fact that it's a Derivative. So that means, and this was the consensus reply, the IGI and other indexes provide Derivative / Primary info. This seems weird. In fact it then becomes (to get really philosophical) difficult to see how information becomes Secondary because the transformation it goes through is already taken care of in the change from Original to Derivative. Something, I feel, is missing from the definitions. Adrian
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
Adrian Bruce
Philosophy warning:-
On Wed, 6 May 2020 at 19:50, Jan Murphy ... wrote: ... You may already be aware that the Strathclyde course (and Family Historian itself) uses the term "primary" and "secondary" in a way that differs from the usage in the USA where people are following the model of Elizabeth Shown Mills and her book Evidence Explained. ...I've always thought that there was a little more to it than that, Jan. As Mike says, the Primary / Secondary attribute sits on the link between "fact" and source-record, so it is, quite naturally, easily applied to the particular information inside the source relevant to that fact. A census schedule, for instance, contains primary info about occupation (say) and secondary about a birth. The bit that I can't get my head around is that the US definition of Primary (info) appears to depend solely on whether the knowledge is first hand or not. So a 90y old mother would be regarded as providing Primary info about the birth of her child 70y previously. Regardless of any memory problems that might, or might not, apply. The typical UK definition of primary puts an extra criteria (criterion?) about being close to the event, so would regard the 90y old mother as providing secondary info, directly encouraging a degree of scepticism about the info being provided. I have to say that code values in FH for original / derivative and direct / indirect / negative from US practice would be most welcome. (A lack of code values doesn't stop you thinking about those concepts, of course). However, even there, once I start thinking about it, things start to crumble a bit. I did once ask in another place (BetterGEDCOM? Don't think it was StackExchange...) about the IGI and other indexes. The process of creating an index clearly creates a Derivative. What is the information though? Primary or Secondary? It doesn't make sense to drop it down to Secondary, because that's simply repeating the fact that it's a Derivative. So that means, and this was the consensus reply, the IGI and other indexes provide Derivative / Primary info. This seems weird. In fact it then becomes (to get really philosophical) difficult to see how information becomes Secondary because the transformation it goes through is already taken care of in the change from Original to Derivative. Something, I feel, is missing from the definitions. Adrian
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
I don’t consider the FH Assessments of Primary evidence and Secondary evidence as applicable to the Source as a whole. Instead, they apply to the Fact and the Citation with respect to the information within the Source that provides the proof.
For example, a Death Certificate provides Primary evidence of the Date & Place of Death, but the Date of Birth derived from the Age or Birth Date found in the Death Certificate is Secondary evidence or even Questionable evidence, because that is not contemporary information.
See the FHUG Knowledge Base article on Getting Started with Genealogy Research and Source Citations: https://www.fhug.org.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=research:getting_started#record_your_findings
I realise it is not as rigorous as Elizabeth Shown Mills but perhaps not as different as you suggest.
Regards, Mike Tate
From: family-historian@groups.io <family-historian@groups.io> On Behalf Of Jan Murphy
Sent: 06 May 2020 19:50 To: family-historian@groups.io Subject: Re: [family-historian] Genealogical Proof Standard
Hello Terry --
A couple of points. A) You may already be aware that the Strathclyde course (and Family Historian itself) uses the term "primary" and "secondary" in a way that differs from the usage in the USA where people are following the model of Elizabeth Shown Mills and her book Evidence Explained. For your reference, here are a few links that might be of interest. (I took the Future Learn course when it was first offered and Mills' work was mentioned in passing with little discussion.)
This shows Mills' method of evidence analysis, where "primary" and "secondary" refer to the information inside the sources. Sources themselves are treated as containers separate from the information and are described as "original" vs. "derivative" (e.g. indexes are derivative) or authored.
Working with Historical Evidence from NGSQ's special issue talks about why the earlier model of "primary" and "secondary" sources is not sufficient for genealogy. You can also download the earlier version of the Process Map.
Board for Certification of Genealogists website. See the Ten Minute Methodology section for examples of proof statements and proof summaries. I also recommend looking at the work samples, the articles from OnBoard, and other materials in the Skillbuilding area.
Jan Murphy
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
claverterry
Jan...so helpful. Thank you.
I must admit that, while I am familiar with a lot on the course, being introduced to GPS and the FAN family as examples of formal, critical approach has made the effort worthwhile ... as well as the many useful tips and links, of course. And there's a week and half to go! (before I can delve more deeply into your links). FH6 is great for storing and retrieving information and records. There is much to clean up, transcriptions to add, etc. which are things you become aware of having moved from other (lesser) software. But now, there are other areas of interest too. And so many stories still remainng to develop and write up. Thanks again. Terry
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Re: Changing Residence fact to Census
Thanks so much to everyone who chimed in for your help. I'm still experimenting to see what works best for me but at least I now have some clue about what I'm doing. This is an amazing group.
On Tue, May 5, 2020 at 5:21 AM Mike Tate <post@...> wrote:
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Re: Genealogical Proof Standard
Jan Murphy
Hello Terry -- A couple of points. A) You may already be aware that the Strathclyde course (and Family Historian itself) uses the term "primary" and "secondary" in a way that differs from the usage in the USA where people are following the model of Elizabeth Shown Mills and her book Evidence Explained. For your reference, here are a few links that might be of interest. (I took the Future Learn course when it was first offered and Mills' work was mentioned in passing with little discussion.) This shows Mills' method of evidence analysis, where "primary" and "secondary" refer to the information inside the sources. Sources themselves are treated as containers separate from the information and are described as "original" vs. "derivative" (e.g. indexes are derivative) or authored. If you are curious about the development of Mills' model, she makes an article available via her website Historic Pathways. https://www.historicpathways.com/articles.html Working with Historical Evidence from NGSQ's special issue talks about why the earlier model of "primary" and "secondary" sources is not sufficient for genealogy. You can also download the earlier version of the Process Map. Until you are comfortable working through the evidence analysis, you may want some guides. Some people like Evidentia software, which will generate a report about what you've done already. I have not tried incorporating my Evidentia reports into Family Historian. Take a look at the Training and Support on the navigation bar to see a step-by-step guide, which will give you a quick overview of how the program works. Currently the reports can be generated in PDF or HTML format. I haven't yet tried incorporating reports from Evidentia into Family Historian, but I suppose one could copy and paste into a Note. We'll have to see wait for the new version of FH to see what's improved there. Other useful links about the GPS: Genealogy Explained's Genealogical Proof Standard flowchart Board for Certification of Genealogists website. See the Ten Minute Methodology section for examples of proof statements and proof summaries. I also recommend looking at the work samples, the articles from OnBoard, and other materials in the Skillbuilding area. Jan Murphy
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