ThinkGenealogy

The Dutch translation of the Genealogy Research Process map has been updated with some minor changes to make it a better translation.  I was contacted months ago by Bob Coret (who helped with the first translation) with some corrections.  Because of limited time and many commitments, I was not able to update the map until now.

download PDF (Dutch – version 2) – 1.10 MB

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.

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This Saturday, November 14, 2009 from 9:00 am to noon, the Arizona State Genealogical Society will hold an Advanced Methodology workshop.

First the group will analyze a case study and determine if the research objective was proved.

I then have the privilege of presenting “Navigating Research with the Genealogical Proof Standard.”  The presentation slides, handout, and a copy of the Genealogy Research Process Map can be found at: http://www.thinkgenealogy.com/map

I am really excited to meet the members of the society and share a topic that is very important to me.

If you are in Tucson, AZ this Saturday morning, you are invited to attend the workshop.  More information can be found at the Arizona State Genealogical Society site:

http://azsgs.org/event/advanced-methodology/

In preparation for my presentation this Friday at the BYU Genealogy Conference, I updated my slides and posted them on SlideShare:

This slide presentation goes with the syllabus material that I posted earlier.

Hope to see some of you on Friday at 1:30pm.

In gotcha #1 we looked at the issue of having the Source quality associated with the Source Details instead of the Master Source.  In gotcha #2 we look at issues dealing with evidence.

Source, Information, & Evidence

According to Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills, ”sources are artifacts, books, digital files, documents, film, people, photographs, recordings, websites, etc.” (see page 24)  Information is the content of the source.  Evidence “represents our interpretation of information we consider relevant to the research question or problem.” (see page 25)  So in order to classify evidence we need both information and a research objective.  Even though the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) does not include a step to define research goals, I’ve included it as part of the Genealogy Research Process Map because it is implied.  Step one of the GPS states:

“We conduct a reasonable exhaustive search in reliable sources for all information that is or may be pertinent to the identity, relationship, event, or situation in question.”
The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual, page 1.

How do we know which sources to search if we don’t have a research objective?  The definitions of direct and indirect evidence also points to the need to have a defined research objective:

Direct evidence – relevant information that seems to answer the research question or solve the problem all by itself.
Indirect evidence – relevant information that cannot, alone, answer the question;
Negative evidence – an inference we can draw from the absence of information that should exist under particular circumstances.
Evidence Explained, page 25

Even the definition for negative evidence hints at a research objective.

So how can we set the citation quality value for evidence in RootsMagic or any other genealogy software unless we have a research objective?

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I applaud the work the RootsMagic team has done to bring professional-quality research practices to the most recent version of RootsMagic. The work that they (and others) are doing is truly innovative. Just the other day, I awarded RootsMagic 4 an Innovator award for the implementation of research analysis around their citation quality feature.

I strongly encourage users of RootsMagic to use this feature, but in its current implementation there are a few gotchas and workarounds that need to be followed.

The Genealogical Proof Standard & Evidence Explained define research analysis classifications for a source, information, and evidence. A source is an object (or person) that contains (or has) information. A source can be classified as original or derivative. An original source is in its first oral or recorded form. Everything else that comes from an original (or another derivative) is a derivative. For example, a book is an original. Let’s say that it is a census enumerator’s book that he carried from house to house to take the census. Now let’s say that book is microfilmed and stored at an archive. The microfilm copy is a derivative. The digitization of the microfilm is a second generation derivative of the original. Without getting into the special cases of image copies, duplicate originals, and record copies, it is relatively easy to start uncovering the provenance or ancestry of the source you are using for your research back to the original source. The classification of a source as original or derivative helps to answer the question “Is there a better source?” and helps in your analysis as original sources usually carry more weight than derivative.

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The 2009 BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy will be held July 28-31 in Provo, Utah. The deadline for syllabus material is June 22.

My presentation is one I have done before: “Navigating Research with the Genealogical Proof Standard.” We are allotted 4 pages for the syllabus material and so far I have used 3. Here is a preview of the syllabus material. Please provide constructive feedback.

P.S.  I will be presenting on Friday, July 31 from 1:30-2:30 p.m.  My presentation is part of the Methodology track.  I love to meet my blog readers, so attend the presentation or stop by afterwards and introduce yourself.