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Archiver > TMG > 2000-01 > 0946867657


From: Lee Hoffman/KY <>
Subject: Re: TMG-L: Source Surety Values
Date: Sun, 02 Jan 2000 21:47:37 -0500


Gary D. Kee wrote:
>Right now I am going through some birth dates, death dates, and burial places
>using a published cemetery listing for a particular county. I've used it
>enough in the past to feel good about it being accurate as to what is
actually on the
>tombstones as it matched the tombstones I had read. I am assigning a value
>of 3 for the person, 2 for the date and 3 for the place. (Right now, I am
certain
>that the tombstone is the person the person I am working with, if I had
reservations
>about that I would probably move that down a level or two along with the other
>values.) Comments?

As I mentioned in my earlier posting, each person's definitions will be
somewhat different and for any group there may be as many ideas about what
any one Source might be assigned as there are members of the group. Still,
I will have to say that I don't know that a "published cemetery listing"
could ever be considered a Primary document allowing a Surety of "3"to be
assigned to it. While the original records of a cemetery might be Primary
records for who and when for burials, a "published cemetery listing" would
at best be a Secondary source. Other data about the person buried there
(including birth data, even death data, relationships, etc.) would then be
hearsay as it would have been obtained from other sources. In some cases,
you may find such records that give the name and relationship of the
informant which may lead you to increase the Surety value for some of the
data, but even so there is the danger of the person creating the record and
the person transcribing the record making a mistake. For this reason, I
would never assign more than a "2" to data from "published cemetery listing".

>Been a lot of discussion about census records. What kind of values does
>everybody assign them?

Because we do not know who responded to the enumerator's questions, the
integrity of the enumerator, we usually cannot give a high surety value to
the census. That a person is listed is _usually_ reliable and comparisons
of earlier/later census entries for that person can corroborate certain
data, but even so I wouldn't assign a Surety Value higher than "2" with an
occasional "1" (or even a "0") assignment to certain data.

>Now, if I have three source that indicate the same birth date, say three
census
>records that I have assigned a value of 2, and no source that would indicate
>otherwise, I would tend to believe that the date itself is as sure as I will
>ever be of it. How would I get it to a level 3 surety for report purposes
>without changing one of the census record surety values? The only thing I
>have thought of is to create something like a 'preponderance of evidence'
source
>with a value of 3. Is something like that logical give how TMG works?

You would not "get it to a level 3 surety". You would instead, select a
lower Surety Threshold on the Report Definition Screen.

Having said that, your idea of a ''preponderance of evidence" source has a
certain attractiveness. Keep in mind that at least some organizations no
longer accept "preponderance of evidence" as valid since it is often
mis-applied. The original meaning of the term (IMHO) was that there was
enough good evidence to support the acceptance of a certain conclusion, but
the usage became that there were many sources cited for this data even
though all those sources obtained their information from the same source
which may or may not have been correct. Thus many sources saying the same
thing don't mean that you should think they are all correct. Find the
origin of each Source -- that is, go back to where that source obtained
its information and verify the data there. If possible, find the
Primary Source or at least, find the earliest secondary source.

Still, I use a rather generic "Conclusions" Source myself in much the same
way as your
"preponderand of evidence" source. I use it infrequently and the Citation
Detail contains detailed discussion of why I came to the conclusion. The
surety that I assign is never higher than the highest surety assigned to
the supporting data and is sometimes lower -- even a "0".

>The negative sign for false data could be of great value. There are some
false
>dates that are often quoted in my tree that I would like in what I send out.
> How would you get a report to print with surety values of 2, 3 and - but
not 0
>and 1?

You wouldn't. Why would you want such a report?

>One great thing about TMG that I have already discover is the ability to
assign
>sources globally with surety values. I have some 'branches' that I have
>received through GEDCOM's. I imported the whole file, split off the
branch that I want
>into a separate TMG file and assign a source and surety value to everything.
>Everything great so far. Now after working with the data (and importing it
>into my main database) I find it is either better or worse than I first
thought,
>can I reassign a different surety value globally to just that source GEDCOM?

No, there is no other way to assign a global citation/surety than the one
you have been using. I would suggest that first, you validate the
information in the GEDCOM, database, or dataset. Then when the desired
data is being prepared for merging, assign the global citation/surety. We
all tend to get a little ahead of our research sometimes and need to slow
down and evaluate first before just accepting what is essentially hearsay
at face value. While we may not need to apply the same criteria as the
courts, we need to consider that someone years from now may do the
research and find that we didn't. If they find that, you can imagine what
they will do with our hard work -- the trashcan. <g>


----------
Lee Hoffman/KY
E-mail:
My website: <http://www.users.mis.net/~lhoffman>;
--------------
A user of the best genealogy program, The Master Genealogist (TMG)

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