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Archiver > TMG > 2001-05 > 0988744879
From:
Subject: Re: [TMG] Question
Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 15:21:19 -0400
wrote:
> How do you enter "personal knowledge" as a source. Thank you,
> Billie (from sunny Florida)
Hi, Billie:
I would put my knowledge in a text citation (don't have TMG nearby to check for terminology) with a thorough explanation of *HOW* I came to know it. Unless you were born with an instinctive imprint of the information, it came from somewhere, or someone. I have on occasion supported certain statements with a simple prose comment, e.g. "My Martin cousins, in my generation, always called her 'Aunt Donnie'."
If you simply say, "I know this to be true," the only ones who will believe you will be the gullible, and yourself. Even if you are completely correct.
On CompuServe about a decade ago, someone argued in all seriousness that it was perfectly legitimate to record, as a fact, information that her deceased grandmother had given her in a dream. She further explained that she put it in her genealogy program as "personal knowledge" (or a nearly identical phrase) with the explanation that if she said it was a dream, nobody would believe her. At least she had that last part right....
Darrell
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