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The Genealogisch Onderzoeksproces (Genealogy Research Process) is important to researchers in the Dutch genealogy community and the Standaard voor Genealogisch Bewijs (Genealogical Proof Standard) is being promoted outside the United States.  Maybe the Board for Certification of Genealogists should consider working with genealogists in other countries to translate The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual into other languages.

One evangelist of good genealogy research practices in the Netherlands is Rob van Drie, the head of research services & deputy directory at the Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie in The Hague, the Netherlands, a state supported documentation center for genealogy.  Rob describes the purpose of the Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie and some sources of inspiration for their efforts:

As Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie we are from 1945 onward the central depot for results of genealogical research. Before the digital era those results were given to us either in print or in handwriting. To be able to continue our position in this field we are working on a webservice StamboomNederland. It is our ambition to give to the Dutch public a digital depot where they can store the results of their research for the future. We do this on a non commercial basis. Genealogists must be able to upload results (in Gedcom or XML) or to add information ´manually´ by typing it in the screens of the webservice. Your `10 Things´ has next to the GenTech Genealogical Data Model and the publications on source citation by Elizabeth Shown Mills, has been very inspiring to us.

Rob has already included the Genealogy Research map in a presentation now hosted on SlideShare and with this updated map hopes to get the word out to a wider audience in various educational publications.  It it my understanding that Rob has taught good research practices in educational lecturing and writing since 1998.  Of the Genealogy Research map, he has stated:

Your more detailed map is a nice tool to make the researcher aware of where he stands in the research process and what he has to do to come to a sound conclusion.

I want to make sure that proper credit goes to the BCG and Elizabeth Shown Mills for all their work (and continuing efforts) to advance genealogy research excellence.  All I did was try to incorporate their teachings into a visualization that I could use as a reference.

Best wishes to Bob, Rob, and many others in the Netherlands as they teach sound genealogy research practices.

As early as the 1997 book, Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian, Elizabeth Shown Mills has covered the topics of citation and analysis.  It is this second item, analysis, that is the focus of this innovator award. In Evidence! we start to see the formation of the current classification for sources (as original or derivative) and evidence (as direct or indirect).  The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual published in 2000 supports the classification of sources (as original or derivative), adds a classification for information (as primary or secondary), and continues the classification of evidence (as direct or indirect).  These classifications remained unchanged in Professional Genealogy which was published in 2001.  By 2006 as seen on quick sheet, Evidence Analysis: A Research Process Map by Elizabeth Shown Mills we see the formation of a new evidence classification so in addition to direct or indirect we can classify evidence as negative evidence.  When Evidence Explained was published in 2007 it restated these same classifications for sources (original or derivative), information (primary or secondary), and evidence (direct, indirect, or negative).

The winner of the next innovator award not only supports Evidence Explained citation templates but has coded these professional analysis practices into their software in a way that is approachable to all.  So a big congratulations goes out to Bruce Buzbee and his RootsMagic team!

Let’s look at the implementation in more detail.

In RootsMagic 3, we had a way to specify the quality of a source but the feature in RootsMagic 4 is dramatically improved.

Here is the citation quality dropdown list from the Edit Citation Details screen in RootsMagic 3:

The list contains primary, secondary, questionable, and unreliable.

Compare that to the citation quality screen from RootsMagic 4:

As you can see, RootsMagic 4 supports separate classifications for source, information, and evidence and fully supports these classification following Evidence Explained.

You get to this screen by clicking the Quality button on the Edit Source screen:

The next closest competitor of this feature is Family Tree Maker 2009, but the software fails to acknowledge the existence of negative evidence:

I am not sure when each product officially released this feature. The best I can estimate is that Family Tree Maker 2009 was released the first of February 2009 and RootsMagic 4 the end of March 2009.  I was aware of this feature in RootsMagic 4 all the way back in July 2008.  Since RootsMagic 4 handles negative evidence, it gets the award.

I feel that this is a transformational innovation because as more genealogists and family historians at all skill levels use this common terminology, analysis will become more consistent and communication will become more clear.  Look for other genealogy software (desktop as well as online) to support citation quality following the genealogical standards in Evidence Explained in the near future.

There are some changes and additonal improvements that I would to see in the area of citation quality that I would like to address in future posts. This is truly an exciting time.  Genealogy software is moving more towards helping with reserach analysis and not just the recording of research results.  Thanks RootsMagic for being a leader in this area.

To see other ThinkGenealogy Innovator award winners, visit the winners page.

Earlier today I posted the following to the APG list on RootsWeb:

There exists confusion in the current genealogy literature on the definition of an original source.

For this discussion I would like to focus only on the definition of original source and not derivatives, common derivatives (transcript, extract, abstract), or derivatives that can be treated as originals (image copy, record copy, or duplicate originals). I want to focus on the source – the container, the person, the paper, the stone, the object. Not the information contained in it (as much as possible) and its classification as primary or secondary. Also I don’t want to focus on how that information relates to the research question (i.e. the evidence and whether it is direct, indirect, or negative).

The 4 main sources that genealogists can turn to for a definition of original source are: Evidence! (1997), The BCG Standards Manual (2000), Professional Genealogy (2001), and Evidence Explained (2007). But using these sources can be contradictory and confusing. Is this due to the refinement of the definition over the years?

Let’s look at some specifics.

Evidence!

On page 49 of Evidence! the word material is used instead of sources, but the definition is useful:
“Original material, as defined by the purist, is based on firsthand knowledge – be it oral or written.”
The main criteria identified is: firsthand knowledge

The BCG Standards Manual

As the GPS was formalized, The BCG Standards Manual defined original sources (see page 8 ) as:
“the person or record whose information did not come from data already spoken or written.”
The main criteria: first occurrence of information

Professional Genealogy

The next year, Professional Genealogy was published which includes Chapter 17, “Evidence Analysis”. On page 333, we find the definition of an original source as:
“In genealogical terms, original sources are those that meet two criteria.
They are made at or near the time of the event, and their informants are in a position to know the facts firsthand.”
So a two-pronged test must be passed in order for a source to be original.
Criteria: timeliness and firsthand knowledge

Evidence Explained

In 2007, the definition changes to focus on form as found in Evidence Explained. The research process map inside the front cover has “form” written under both original and derivative. We find a definition of original source in three places:
. page 24: “Original sources – material in its first oral or recorded form”
. page 826: “original source: a source that is still in its first recorded or uttered form.”
. page 828: “source: … Sources are broadly classified as either an original source (q.v.) or a derivative source (q.v.), depending upon their physical form.”
The main criteria: physical form

So it appears that now a single-question test would be sufficient to classify a source as original:
“From what was this source derived?”
If the answer doesn’t reveal another source, then it is an original.

In an APG discussion, Elizabeth Shown Mills indicates that “Original sources can have secondhand information.” An example is an original death certificate that contains primary information of the death but secondary information of the birth. A question that I haven’t seen answered is:
“Can an original source contain ONLY secondary information?”
What would be an example? If that case is true, then only the definition in Evidence Explained is useful. Otherwise you mix the classification of source with that for information.

Primary Source

Another point I want to bring out from Evidence Explained is the definition of primary source found on pages 22-23:
“PRIMARY SOURCE
. one created by someone with firsthand knowledge . one created at or about the time an event occurred Within this framework, contradictions abound between theory and practice, causing ambiguous analyses and unreliable conclusions.”

It appears that the reason primary source is discussed is to identify its weaknesses and show why original source is preferable in genealogy research.
The problem stems from the two-prong test of firsthand knowledge and timeliness. If a source came from someone with firsthand knowledge but was created long after the event in question, the test would fail. Or, if the source was create near the time of the event, but the informant had secondhand knowledge, then the test would also fail. The strength of the single test of physical form for an original source is its simplicity on focusing on the object that is the source and not the informant, his/her knowledge, or the information.

What is confusing is that what Evidence Explained defines as a primary source with its problems is the same definition that Professional Genealogy uses for original source.

My inclination is that this progression of definitions is a refinement of understanding over the years and that the current accepted definition of original source focuses only on physical form. And as the other three guides are revised, they will share the definition currently found only in Evidence Explained.

The Back Story

Now let me tell you the back story that produced this examination of the definition of original source. In a recent presentation aimed at teaching beginning researchers the Genealogical Proof Standard, the question came up as to whether a grave marker is an original or derivative source. In preparation for the presentation (and as part of a study assignment for the ProGen Study Group) I shared the two-pronged test defined in Professional Genealogy, Chapter 17. Because it was a double marker and the wife died three decades after the husband, the class questioned the timeliness part of the test. I sensed that there was still a little confusion on this point and have wrestled with this question since then. There has to be a way that beginners can confidently determine if a source is original or not.

As it so happens, this month’s ProGen Study Group assignment includes reading the first chapter of Evidence Explained. That is when I noticed the possible shift toward physical form and a single test. I had read the chapter a few times before, but now I saw it differently. Now a single test, that is something that I think beginners can understand!

So in the grave marker case, what would it be derived from? One answer could be nothing, in which case it is an original. In some cases a new grave marker is created to replace an old one. I don’t feel that happened in this case. It would be something to check out. When my mother passed away, we worked with the mortuary to design the grave marker and then months later it was created. We verified the paperwork and later the grave marker to make sure all information was as we expected. So, was the marker inscription a granite-carved extract from the original paperwork or more likely a duplicate original? In either case, things are less problematic and I feel comfortable classifying the grave marker as an original source.

Classifying Sources with Evidence Explained?

Something else I noticed in my latest browsing of Evidence Explained.
Chapter 5 deals with Cemetery Records and on page 207 is summarized the QuickCheck models which are grouped in three categories: Cemetery Office Records, Markers & Memorials (Originals), and Derivatives. So it appears in this case I don’t have to worry about things too much and can call the grave marker an original source because Evidence Explained classifies it as such.
I think that for beginners using Evidence Explained as a crutch is acceptable as they gain confidence is classifying sources using the physical form test. So my recommendation for beginners would be to 1) try to determine if a source is original or derivative on their own and come up with an answer, 2) look up the source in Evidence Explained and if original or derivative is specified compare it with their answer. If they don’t match, try to determine why it might be the other classification.

Other chapters that appear to at least partially classify sources as original or derivative (or image copy) are: Ch 6 – Census Records, Ch 7 – Church Records, Ch 8 – Local & State Records: Courts & Governance, Ch 10 – Local & State Records: Property & Probates, Ch 11- National Government Records, and Ch 12 – Publications (Books, CDs, Maps, Leaflets & Videos).

Too bad there is not a growing master list of record types with classifications as: original, derivative, image copy, duplicate original, and record copy.

Now, two hours later, I have down in words what has been swarming in my head for weeks. I look forward to learning from your understanding and experience.

Update:

Follow the discussion on the APG list.

A discussion about modern American genealogy cannot begin without first recognizing Donald Lines Jacobus.

“During his lifetime, Jacobus was widely regarded as the dean of American genealogists, and he is recognized as the founder of the modern school of genealogy in the United States.  On his death, he was described by his colleague Milton Rubincam, as ‘the man who more than any other single individual elevated genealogy to the high degree of scholarship it now occupies.’”  See National Genealogy Hall of Fame.

His many works include Genealogy As Pastime and Profession which was published in 1930.

In 1940, The American Society of Genealogists (ASG) was founded to “elevate the profession of genealogy to the same literary and scientific level enjoyed by history.”

In 1964, The Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) was founded by a few fellows from ASG, members of NGS and others.  The purpose of BCG was to “set scholarship standards for professional genealogists.”

Noel C. Stevenson was a lawyer and genealogist who tried to bring principles of evidence from the field of law to genealogy.  He proposed that genealogists follow the principles of Preponderance of the Evidence, a standard used in civil cases.  For the next two decades, genealogists used the POE although with a higher standard than used in law.

One of Stevenson’s important works was Genealogical Evidence: A Guide to the Standard of Proof Relating to Pedigrees, Ancestry, Heirship and Family History which was published in 1979.

Also in 1979, Gary B. and Elizabeth Shown Mills wrote an article for The Genealogical Helper titled, “How to Properly Document Your Research Notes.”  This helped spawn the idea of writing a citation guide specifically for genealogists.  Richard S. Lackey took up the project and published Cite Your Sources in 1980.

In 1997, the BCG dropped the use of POE and adopted the Genealogical Proof Standard. In that same year, Elizabeth Shown Mills published an updated citation guide, Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian.  In 2000, the BCG published the GPS in the BCG Standards Manual.

In 2001, Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers, and Librarians was published with Elizabeth Shown Mills as editor.

In 2007, Elizabeth Shown Mills’ work, Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, is published – almost 30 years from that first citation article published in The Genealogical Helper.  The first article was 5 pages whereas Evidence Explained contains 885 pages.

I am open to any other suggestions of what to include on this timeline.

In the last two and a half months alone, the original Genealogy Research Process Map post received 500 pageviews.  Version 2 of the map has only a few changes.  Besides fixing two typos, the arrows separating the 6 process steps where moved up next to the step headers.  I did this to help it look more like a timeline.  Looking at the map, there are three main “rows”: the circle diagram, the process timeline, and the process details.  The idea is to start in the middle of the diagram to understand the steps in the process: Define, Search, Cite, Analyze, Resolve, and Conclude. 

Then you can read the step details below or see the concepts and artifacts above with color coding to relate them to the steps.

Click to download the Genealogy Research Process Map – Version 2 (PDF – 9.05 MB)

A complete history of changes can be found at Genealogy Research Process Map History.

• Chapter 4 – The Essential Library by Joy Reisinger, CG
• Chapter 7 – Copyright and Fair Use by Val D. Greenwood, J.D., AG

Chapter 4 begins with the phrase: “A personal library is an essential tool of every professional. As genealogists, we use the written word on a daily basis for information about unfamiliar locales and repositories, as well as for source material.”

The chapter then proceeds to break down the selection criteria for our library into three goal areas: education, efficiency, and reliability. As we then proceed to stock our library, we can do it in stages starting with a basic shelf, adding more essential materials, and finally topping it off with useful, but discretionary items. We should also have a balance of three categories of media: instructional works, general references, and source materials. Like the public and academic libraries of today, our libraries will be a mix of books, magazines, journals, maps, and digital media. This chapter helps us plan our personal library so we can then purchase our items as time and budget allows.

The majority of the chapter is a 15-page bibliography of library items to consider. It covers topics in various areas including instruction manuals, journals, source guides, and international materials.

Chapter 7 is a must read for any genealogist or family historian. Unlike chapter 5 that talks about what is ethical, this chapter talks about what is legal. Both should be considered together. This chapter presents the basics of copyright and fair use and discusses them in the context of genealogy. I definitely learned some things I didn’t know on the topic my first read through.  But I will need to read it again at least a few more times for it to really sink in.
 

Practical Assignment
Our practical assignment this month was to:

1. Catalog all of our genealogy-related publications in our personal library
2. Using Chapter 4, identify missing items in our library and create a purchasing plan
3. Create a wish list of other items to add to the purchasing plan

Here is my assignment:

Items in My Library Today

• Most are cataloged on LibraryThing
• Magazines
  • NGS Quarterly (Dec 2005 – present)
  • NGS NewsMagazine (Jan 2006 – present)
  • Digital Genealogist (Sep 2007 – present)
  • Internet Genealogy (Nov 2006 – present)
  • Ancestry Magazine (Jan 2006 – present)
• Family History Library Catalog
• Heritage Quest Online (via local library)
• Footnote (free 1 year – user experience feedback session)
• BCG Directory
• APG Directory
• Black’s Law Dictionary, 2nd edition 

Items I Plan to Purchase

• My Amazon Wish List (in priority order)
• Genealogy as Pasttime and Profession by Daniel Lines Jacobus (maybe check out from the library)
• North Carolina Research: Genealogy & Local History, second edition, by Helen F. M. Leary
• North Carolina Maps

Peer Group Assignment
Our assignment for this month is to share our catalog of our personal library as well as our purchasing plan with our peers.  This gives our peers a chance to learn from our library as well as share some knowledge about items in our purchase plan.  For example, suppose that I feel PERSI is important to my library so it is part of my purchasing plan.  A peer might know that besides being part of a paid subscription at Ancestry, PERSI can be accessed for free (and often in our own homes) as part of Heritage Quest.  My wise peer might also then point me to an Encyclopedia of Genealogy entry for Heritage Quest Online that identifies libraries by state that offer free in-home access.

Discussion Group
The discussion topic for this month will be at least 5 questions dealing with copyright and fair use.

I usually write the ProGen post after we have had our online discussion, but this month I am doing it before for two reasons.  The first is that next week is Independence Day and I am not sure how many people will be available for our chat.  The second is that I thought I would just include my practical assignment as part of this post and send a link to my peers to review.

Depending on how (or if) the chat occurs this month, I might create a follow-up post with anything interesting I learned.

Here is a link to my ProGen Study Group #2  post for those interested.
 

Web 2.0

The term Web 2.0 has been around since 2004 and is defined by wikipedia as the:

“perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users”

There is much debate over the definition of Web 2.0 and what makes a website “Web 2.0″.  According to SEOmoz.org, some of the defining characteristics of Web 2.0 are:

• User generated and/or user influenced content
• Applications that use the Web (versus the desktop) as a platform, in innovative ways
• Similar visual design and shared functional languages
• Leveraging of popular trends, including blogging, social tagging, wikis, and peer-to-peer sharing
• Inclusion of emerging web technologies like RSS, AJAX, APIs (and accompanying mashups), Ruby on Rails and others
• Open source or sharable/editable frameworks in the form of user-oriented “create your own” APIs

Web 2.0 links:

• O’Reilly Radar - Web 2.0 Compact Definition: Trying Again
• SEOmoz’s Web 2.0 Awards
• WebTrends 2.0 - Web 2.0 Directory
• Pixel Acres - The Visual Design of Web 2.0
• Web Design from Scratch - Current Style in Web Design

Sample Sites:

• Flickr
• del.icio.us
• LinkedIn
• Wikipedia

Genealogy 2.0

When I search the internet for “genealogy 2.0″, I get a number of sites that talk about the application of Web 2.0 to genealogy.  These sites mention social networking and collaboration as key components of Genealogy 2.0.  One blog, The Plog: Pytlewski Log, states:

“traditionally genealogy 2.0 has only referred to the new internet based applications that are changing the way we collaborate as a genealogical community”

My view of Genealogy 2.0 is broader than Web 2.0 genealogy application or what I term, Web 2.0+Gen.  Maybe it is because I have developed both web applications and Windows client applications.  Maybe it is because I see so many areas for improvement and innovation in genealogy software and I don’t want to wait around for Genealogy 2.5 or 3.0.  Or maybe it is just the developer in me that wants to avoid tight coupling. But pairing Genealogy 2.0 with Web 2.0 excludes genealogy software that is not web-based.  It also seems to focus too much on what Web 2.0 is and not what Genealogy 2.0 could be.

Genealogy 2.0 links:

• Genealogy 2.0
• Family Matters

Sample Sites:

• FamilyLink
• Geni
• FamilyPursuit

Expanded View of Genealogy 2.0

Many of these ideas are not new, but have been in the genealogy community for years.  The time is ripe for them to materialize as software that will aid genealogists and family historians to do things that they have never been able to easily do before. 

An expanded view of Genealogy 2.0 includes the following characteristics:

• Social networking 
• Collaboration during research, analysis, and conclusions
• More than just sharing data and results
• Supports sources, information, evidence, and conclusions
• Document-centered data collection
• Standardized source citation (see Evidence Explained)
• Source citation as data not text
• Source provenance
• Information extraction
• Evidence evaluation and weight
• Conclusion recording
• Online data backup
• Community of researchers
• Online data storage or peer-to-peer offline storage
• Data linking and layering, not merging
• Expanded to include not only web-based applications but also desktop and mobile
• Modernizing of GEDCOM or replacement with XML-based format
• The ability to not do anything with genealogy for a year and then start right where I left off without any loss of information or momentum

Now the last point may just be my own personal wish list item, but if  a Genealogy 2.0 application included a place to put everthing and kept track of what I have done and what else needs to be done then it would be much easier to continue where I left off.

Genealogy 2.0 Expanded links:

• Source-Centricity
• Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace by Elizabeth Shown Mills
• The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual

I look forward to your comments and ideas about Genealogy 2.0.