Even though the web site shares the same name, it doesn’t have much to do with the childhood playground game you might have played in elementary school.  Unless you consider that it is supposed to be fun, has to do with locations, moving around, “checking-in” at different locations, and claiming your spot at the top of the ranks.  On second thought, they both have a lot in common.

What is intended as a fun way to encourage people to go out on the town and visit various locations might just find a place in the genealogy world.

On the foursquare help page the site is described as “50% friend-finder, 30% social cityguide, 20% nightlife game.”  It then goes on to explain:

If you tell us where you are, we can tell you which of your friends are nearby. We call this “checking-in”. You can check-in from a park, bar, museum, restaurant, whatever.

If you are located in one of the 21 cities currently supported, you can check in using your cell phone, mobile device, or web browser to get credit for visiting a location.  You can also leave a tip so that other visitors will know what to do.  As additional incentives to visit places, you can earn points, badges, and if you have visited a location the most the title of mayor.  It just makes the experience more fun.

So how can this relate to genealogy? 

Think of the places where you do your genealogy research.  It could be a family history center, court house, or the National Archives and Records Administration. By adding these venues to foursquare and tagging them with the keyword “genealogy” others will be able to discover places to do genealogy research in that city.  You could also give tips such as “no photography allowed,” “On Tuesdays, Mrs. Jones can help with probate record questions,” “photocopies cost $1 per page,” or whatever information someone visiting that location might want to know.  Think of the help this will be to those who are new to that repository.

There are already a few genealogy-related places listed in foursquare including NARA and the Family History Library.  Even better you could be the first to be named mayor of the Family History Library and it will only take you 12 visits to dethrone the current mayor of the National Archives:

Expect to hear a lot about foursquare in 2010.  Pete Cashmore in an online CNN article titled, Next year’s Twitter? It’s Foursquare, states:

As 2009 draws to a close, with Twitter undoubtedly this year’s media darling and Facebook continuing on its path to global domination, you may wonder which social-media service will become tech’s poster boy in 2010.

Among the Web’s early adopter set, the answer is nearly unanimous: Foursquare.

While the technology landscape is ever-changing, I’d argue that Foursquare already has aligned itself to become next year’s mainstream hit.

That remains to be seen, but I see great potential for the use of foursquare by the genealogy community.  I encourage you to join foursquare, add your favorite research locations, tag them as “genealogy” venues, share your knowledge using tips, and claim your position as mayor of the National Archives (or any other places you visit).

I look forward to your comments about how you like this service and if you have found it useful.

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?

A research objective can be in the form of a question, statement, or hypothesis.  The following are all valid research objectives:

• What was Worth Tucker’s birth date and place?
• Where was Worth Tucker born?
• Worth Tucker was born 30 Nov 1870 in Ashe County, North Carolina.
• Was Worth Tucker born in 1869 or 1870?

How specific the research goal depends on the researcher and what they want to discover.

In RootsMagic, a source can be associated with a person, family, or fact:

And for each citation of a source you can specify a value for citation quality for source, information, and evidence.  But to classify evidence, what is the research objective implied or otherwise?

Let’s say we have a book that we use as a source.  It was created by its author and is an original source.  The source information is entered in the Master Source section and appears in the Master Source List.  A specific page of that book is specified in the Source Details section and some information from that page is entered as part of the Source Detail Text.  This information then needs to be evaluated based on who provided that information: the informant.  If the informant was a participant or eyewitness, then we can say that the information is primary, otherwise it is secondary.  Now we come to evidence.  We take that piece of information and compare it to our research objective, but since we don’t have one we must infer it from what the citation is related to: person, family, or fact.  It is important to note that it is usually the researcher that should determine the research objective and not the software. 

Since we don’t have research objectives, only what the citation is associated with, then we must imply the research objective.  This can be tricky. 

Evidence for Fact Citation

Since a birth fact allows you to enter date, place, and place details does information in the source we are citing need to contain all of this information before we can say that it is direct?  Put another way, is the implied research objective:

What is the date, city, county, state, and specific place of Worth Tucker’s birth?

or it is

What is the date and place of Worth Tucker’s birth?

Do they both mean the same thing?  There is room for ambiguity.  Not to mention the fact that as a researcher, maybe I wanted the research objective to be a statement or a hypothesis:

Worth Tucker was born 30 Nov 1870 in Ashe County, North Carolina.

Depending on the fact, the software ask us to enter different information:

• Birth – date, place, place details
• Alternate Name – given names, surname, prefix, suffix, name type, nickname, date
• Education – date, place, place details, description
• DNA – DNA results
• LDS Baptism – date, temple, status, live/temple

One workaround for fact-based citations is to define a guideline that the citation quality can be marked as direct only if all possible entry fields for that fact type are filled in completely.  If a date or place is only partially filled in or the information doesn’t allow all fields to be filled in, then it is indirect.

Evidence for Person Citation

What would be the implied research objective for a citation associated with a person?

When you add a new person it asks for given name(s), surname, prefix, suffix, sex, and nickname plus some vital facts.  So I guess the workaround for this situation is to have the research objective be:

What is the complete name, sex, and optional nickname of Worth Tucker?

If the information from the source can answer all the parts, then it is direct; otherwise it is indirect.

Evidence for Family Citation

Now what about the implied research objective for a citation associated with a family?

What are the complete names of both parents and all children as well as the birth order of the children for the marriage of Worth Tucker and Florence Abby Pulsipher?

If the information in the source can answer all parts of the question, then the evidence is direct.

An Eye to the Future

Part of the reason for the current implementation in RootsMagic 4 and similar software could be the decades-old focus on research results and not research analysis.  My first genealogy software was a DOS version of PAF.  Before using that software, all research and any conclusions I came up with were done on paper.  Even the first versions of PAF only allowed you to enter a single date for birth, christening, death, and burial.  So the software was intended only to record the results of your research.  Modern genealogy software allows you to enter multiple facts/events of the same type and associate a source citation to it.  That way, you could have half a dozen birth entries containing different values or different levels of detail as the your research required. The software is able to keep track of ongoing research, and not just results.  I think genealogy software will continue to innovate and allow more and more research collection and analysis to occur in the software.  That is the direction that citation quality is pointing in RootsMagic 4 and the similar feature in Family Tree Maker 2009.  The next logical step is to allow the software to define research projects each with their own research objectives.  These research objectives would then be associated with source citations and citation quality therefore clarifying the use of the classification of evidence as direct or indirect.

The ProGen Study Group assignment for November 2008  was about research.

Our reading assignment from Professional Genealogy was:

• Chapter 15 - Research Procedures by Linda Woodward Geiger, CGRS, CGL

As professional genealogists we often specialize in a location, type of record, topic, or ethnic group.  We need to be knowledgeable and prepared before research begins and effective while researching.

This paragraph does a great job summarizing the chapter contents:

“Regardless of our specialty, effective research on any specific project comes from long-range preparation, followed by a literature survey and an actual on-site search.  This chapter provides strategies for identifying available resources, determining their locations, using electronic finding aids, and otherwise preparing ourselves before we arrive on site.  Finally, it offers suggestions for the research itself – both good work habits and goodwill builders.”

This chapter is also a helpful reminder to personal genealogists that preparation before research is important.

The assignment for this month was to create a locality guide for our area of specialization.  Since I am currently researching Worth Tucker, I chose Ashe County, North Carolina as my location.

Instead of writing in a notebook or keeping a Word document on my computer, I decided to post my assignment on the FamilySearch Research Wiki.  That way others can review it and enhance it and that I can access it from any computer with an Internet connection.

One of the things I like about the Research Wiki is the structure it gives to each county:

Here is a link to the page about Ashe County, North Carolina.  Some of the information was already there, but I added U.S. Federal Census townships as well as the statistics for Laurel township in 1870.

In my presentation, Navigating Research with the Genealogical Proof Standard, I discuss 3 important documents that genealogists and family historians should use:

1. Research Plan
2. Research Log
3. Research Analysis

Those attending the class asked for copies of the documents.  Here is a link to the research documents in Microsoft Word format: 3 Research Documents

Three files can be used as templates for your own research.  The other three are filled in with my current research on my great grandfather, Worth Tucker, trying to determine his birth date and place.

I hope you find these documents useful.

This is an exciting week for family historians and genealogists in the Phoenix area as the 1st annual Mesa Arizona Family History Expo will start this Friday, November 14th.  As a resident of Phoenix, I’ve thought for a long time that Arizona would be a great place to hold a family history conference (especially in the fall and winter months) and I am happy to see that one is coming.  If all goes well this year, then we can look forward to the sponsors, Family History Expos.com, returning again for many years to come.

On Friday and Saturday I will be attending classes and visiting the booths in the exhibit hall.  On Saturday at 2:30pm in the Palo Verde II room, I will be presenting:

Navigating Research with the Genealogical Proof Standard
(Beginner – Experienced) This class discusses the Genealogical Proof Standard and walks the student through the process by way of a visualization called the Genealogy Research Process map. Each step is explored through case study and uses traditional and online resources.

I hope that you can make it to the presentation.  If any blog readers are attending the conference and you happen to see me, then come say “hello.”

Until then, I will be counting down the days.

The user interface is clean and consistent.  A tutorial explains the application and there are help links available on every page.  I was interested in how the company would fulfill their promise to “enable genealogy enthusiasts to involve family members who have never engaged in family history work. ”  After spending a few hours using the beta, I think Family Pursuit, LC is on a path of innovation for genealogy software.  Those more experienced with family history now have tools available to mentor beginners in the research process and work collaboratively toward a common goal.

It is early in the beta process and not all features are available.  Overall, I like what I have seen so far and will share more details as the beta testing continues.