Best way to handle indirect evidence or proof arguments?

Question

I wasn't quite sure which part of the forum this most accurately applies to, so I hope WikiTree Help is a valid place for it!

I am working on one of my 2nd great-grandmothers. She has been a brick wall for my family for many years.  Very little was known about her other than she came from Germany. No information on parents. No information on home village. Not even a actual birth date. Just an approximate age at death. No death certificates. No information aside from her name on her marriage record. Very little to go on.

That said, I've recently had a breakthrough. By studying the baptismal records of her children along with the baptismal records of children from her church whose fathers share the same surname as my 2xg-gm's maiden name, I believe I've identified 3 brothers. Then I was able to use this information, with a few more steps involved, to find the home village in Germany. And then, her parents.

I'm still writing this up. I have a very very very rough first draft which doesn't even have my citations in it yet. I have a lot of work to do on it still. And it is just over 6 pages.

What is the best way to document this type of thing in the profile? Do I finish writing up my proof argument and cite myself? How long a document are we able to attach to profiles? Most of the profiles I've worked on so far are much more straightforward.

For what it is worth, I've had both my cousin, who is familiar with the area and families, and a stranger off a german genealogy related facebook group, review my rough draft. And both found it logical. So it isn't all in my head!

Comments

Trina, I did exactly the same thing many years ago.  I documented it here (this is page 3 and 4 of a multi-page article):

http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~jillaine/genealogy/pfalz/pfalz2.html

http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~jillaine/genealogy/pfalz/pfalz3.html

On the profile of your ancestress you could summarize your findings and link to the free space page that Barry's example demonstrates. 

---

Fyi, if I did this again or here on WikiTree, I would document it very differently. Back then, I documented my excitement over the discovery process. Today, I would write it more like an NGS Quarterly article with citations.

I look forward to reading yours.

---

Thank you Jillaine for your example. I have to admit I'm considering Barry's suggestion of publication. Though that would mean, for at least some period of time, not being able to publicly post my work. So I am torn about that. Since I still have a great deal of work to polish up my draft (and add my citations, etc.) I am going to be mulling over the options!

---

I missed the publication recommendation.  I support that.

If the article will focus on the process you engaged in (the hunt), do consider the NGS Quarterly. It has excellent articles that both demonstrate the research process while at the same time sharing the results. 

Answer 1

It sounds to me like you should create a freespace page -- in the upper right, select Add -> New Thing. Here's an example I created:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Jacksons_of_Carland_Church_and_related_families

You can then link to that page within the narratives on the relevant profiles -- there is no need to provide a full citation with reference note when it's just to another Wikitree page.

Other options: have you considered writing it up and submitting to a genealogy journal? It sounds interesting enough. Then you could certainly cite yourself :-)

Wikitree doesn't have the taboo against self-citation that Wikipedia does. So if for some reason you want to keep your analysis only in your private records, you can just cite from the profiles using the typical citation to private records.

Or you can insert all of the analysis on the profile of one person. But because it sounds like it will end up pertaining to a lot of profiles on Wikitree, I don't like that option. It singles out that one person's profile as being more special than all of the other people in the analysis. If you're going to end up linking a bunch of profiles to one page, I like to have that page be a freespace page rather than a profile. Also, it lets your profile be more concise. But when I do put analysis/correlation/logic on a profile, I put it under the == Research Notes == heading.

Comments

I agree - I would also go with a freespace page. I really like them for reasoning about complicated evidence involving whole families.

---

Thank you Barry. I haven't yet used the freespace pages, so I'll look into that.

As for submitting it for publication...well, it has crossed my mind. I've just never done it before! I do try to use EE for my citations, so the rest of it is editing my very very very rough first draft into a publishable article.

I may need to go do some article reading and look for some tips!