Genealogy Search Information

Life Events - Birth, Marriages and Death
Part of your search will include finding and recording life events. There are many documents and sources that can help to validate your ancestry. Genealogy is more than just dates and places. A well researched and documented family tree shows the care that was taken to build an accurate family history. Documents also help to link multiple relatives, which can help you to grow your family tree.

Source Citation
Sources are documents that substantiate facts. Source citation is meant to make it easy for yourself and others to go back and investigate the source again. And yes, on more than one occasion, you will end up needing to look up the document or directing a relative to do the same genealogy search. To make it easier for yourself and others, you should have a title for the source and cite the source fully. Include as much information as needed so you can easily find the document again. Note the type of source it is (book, newspaper, online database), and where you found the information. This is known as the repository. Make note as to when you found the information as well.

Source Validity
Inevitable during your genealogy search, you will find sources that contain contradicting family information; or at least information you thought to be true. This is due to not knowing who actually gave the information as well as the person who recorded it in the first place. For example a census could have been filled out by someone who didn't bother to ask the spelling of the family members name; the information could have been given by a neighbor or the eldest child in the house.

All genealogy search documents are created by an informant who may have intentionally or unintentionally provided false or misleading information, which adds complexity to your genealogy search. Some examples might be an under-aged boy and girl who wanted to get married, or a person who lied about his age to join the military. A person who is distressed may not be able to accurately recall information. Researchers need to evaluate sources independently and resolve conflicting evidence.

Source Information
The facts that are embedded in sources are divided into primary and secondary information. For the information to be considered primary, the information was recorded and witnessed first hand. Secondary information is recorded after the fact and may be witnessed second hand. An example of a document found during your genealogy search that contains mixed information (both primary and secondary information) is a death certificate. The birth information, as well as the mother’s maiden name (if listed) is secondary information. This is because the event happened in the past and is being recorded by someone who may not have first hand knowledge of this information. The death date and cause of death would be primary information. Most sources have mixed information, part primary and part secondary.

Source Reliability
The documents that you find during your genealogy search will either directly or indirectly state the facts you are looking for. An example of directly states the facts is a driver’s license. It directly states day, month and year a person was born. A census record that shows a persons age, indirectly states when a person is born.

Source Quality
Your genealogy search will produce documents that are original and derivative. Derivative documents are indexes, and databases that are hand written or typed from original documents. These documents are subject to interpretation and may contain errors during the recording of the information. More weight is given to original documents.