Are the Ancestors Hanging From Your Family Tree Really Your Own?
- A reasonably exhaustive search for all pertinent information
The keyword here is "reasonably." Does this mean that you have to locate and interpret every record or source available for your ancestor? Not necessarily. What it does assume, however, is that you have examined a wide range of high quality sources which relate to your specific genealogical question (identity, event, relationship, etc.). This helps to minimize the probability that undiscovered evidence will overturn a too-hasty conclusion down the road. - A complete and accurate citation to the source of each item used
If you don't know where a piece of evidence came from, how can you evaluate it? For this reason it is very important to document all sources as you find them. Keeping track of sources also provides the side benefit that fellow researchers can easily locate the same sources in order to verify your information and conclusions for themselves. It is very important in this step to record all sources that you have examined, whether or not they provided any new facts for your family tree. These facts which seem useless now, may provide new connections down the road when combined with other sources. See Citing Your Sources for more details on how to best document the many different types of sources used by genealogists. - Analysis of the collected information's quality as evidence
This is probably the most difficult step for most people to grasp. In order to evaluate the quality of your evidence, it is first important to determine how likely the information is to be accurate. Is the source original or derivative? Is the information contained in that source primary or secondary? Is your evidence direct or indirect? It is not always cut and dried. While primary information provided by an original source may seem the most conclusive, the individuals who created that record may have erred in their statements or recording, lied about certain details, or omitted pertinent information. On the other hand, a derivative work which expands on the original through further, careful research of alternative sources to fill in holes and inconsistencies, may be more dependable than the original itself. The goal here is to apply sound interpretation of the data contributed by each source based on its own merits. - Resolution of any contradictory or conflicting evidence
When evidence is contradictory the problem of proof because more complex. You will need to determine just how much weight the conflicting evidence carries in relation to the evidence which supports your hypothesis. In general, each piece of evidence needs to be reevaluated in terms of its likelihood to be accurate, the reason it was created in the first place, and its corroboration with other evidence. If major conflicts still exist, you may have to take a step back and do another search for additional records. - Arrive at a soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion
Basically, this means to arrive at and document the conclusion that is best supported by the evidence. If conflicts arose which have still not been resolved, then an argument needs to constructed to provide well-grounded reasons why the contradictory evidence is less credible than the bulk of the remaining evidence.
