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Genealogically Defined

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Robert Charles Anderson, FASG, Director of the Great Migration Study Project and author of Elements of Genealogical Analysis says a person is Genealogically Defined when "we have at least one piece of evidence that will lead to the identification of his or her parents, one piece of evidence for each spouse(s), and one piece of evidence for each child."

Sources that qualify:
Vital Records (Birth, Marriage, Death)
Published Genealogies/Histories
Census Records
Published Obituaries

Sources that DO NOT qualify:
Ancestry family trees (if sourced, go to the source, and use that)
Find-a-Grave (if sourced, go to the source, and use that)

Put another way, can you answer YES to each of these questions?

1. Do you have a source that will identify the PARENTS?

2. Do you have a source for each SPOUSE?

3. Do you have a source for each CHILD?

If so, your profile is Genealogically Defined and has a great start on sourcing.

Notice that each of these sources is reciprocal with the person it connects. You can then put that same source on the connected person's profile and begin the process again. (Borrowed from Michael Stills' G2G post.)

If you have a Genealogically Defined profile, unless the WikiTree community develops and adopts a Research Note Box, you can use this:

'''[[Space:Genealogically Defined|Genealogically Defined]]'''

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Genealogically Defined Profile Examples





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Comments: 10

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Pat (Fuller) Credit
Here is a g2g post named "How does a "Genealogically Defined" notation value add?:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/988570

posted by Pat (Fuller) Credit
Bob Keniston Jr.
A date of death, and a record seem to be missing from the hypothetical.
posted by Bob Keniston Jr.
Barry Smith
To clarify my question, do we need, as an example, the marriage record and will to identify John's parents with names that match the birth record? Or as another example, we could require the documents to provide identical birth months for the John Smith in question. While this is desirable, perhaps it is more restrictive than what is meant by "genealogically defined."
posted by Barry Smith
Barry Smith
Suppose we have a birth record of a John Smith in TinyTown, Massachusetts to parents Alfred and Betsey Smith. Suppose we have also a marriage record 20 years later in TinyTown of John Smith to Jane Doe. Suppose also we have a will of John Smith proving that he never had children. Is John Smith's profile genealogically defined?

It has not been proved that Jane's husband was the son of Alfred and Betsey, nor that the will belonged either to their son or to Jane's husband. Yet each record clearly identifies the parents, the spouse, and the lack of children of *some* John Smith.

Does part of the definition of "genealogically defined" require that the identifying pieces of evidence are all mutually connected through inter-referencing?

posted by Barry Smith
Marty (Lenover) Acks
Not that we don't want vital records, but how would you consider the headstone image that is include as part of a FindAGrave profile. Note that these may be replacement headstones and death information can be considered contemporary information. Would it matter if I took a picture of the headstone versus it being in FAG, or if I had a cemetery card image or the equivalent or evidence from the files of the organization that manages the cemetery.
posted by Marty (Lenover) Acks
SJ Baty
Love this page, use it all the time and have been marking my profiles as defined as I accomplish it:

This profile is Genealogically Defined.

posted by SJ Baty
Pare (Howie) Chase
Beautiful! Wish everybody would stop by and read this. :o)
posted by Pare (Howie) Chase
Laura (Pennie) Bozzay
I think the definition needs some refinement that indicates the evidence is not coming from user donated trees or secondary sources but are from primary sources.

The way it is currently written an Ancestry tree would qualify and they do not qualify as a credible source here on WikiTree.

posted by Laura (Pennie) Bozzay
E. Compton
For our reference: List of profiles that have been tagged as Genealogically Defined:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Space:Genealogically_Defined

posted by E. Compton
Pat (Fuller) Credit
Great idea. Look great.

I add this to most of my free-space pages:

It will be a good tool to help check that all the Profiles are entered here.

posted by Pat (Fuller) Credit