Genealogically Defined

May I ask -- What's the source for Robert Charles Anderson's quote here? Thanks.

I think your guidelines are a great standard to strive for, but as I read through them, I despair over the number of my ancestors who would fail to meet them despite my best efforts. For instance, I imagine I have a dozen or more whose only source for a birth or death date is their headstone. Trust me, I understand the shortcomings of Find-A-Grave and have first hand experience in that regard, but sometimes, particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries, I just can't FIND a church record or something to use as a source... all I have is that headstone. Am I supposed to just turn my nose up at the data on that rock if that's all I've got, and if I incorporate it, does that disqualify the bio from being genealogically defined?

You say published genealogies and histories qualify as reliable sources, but to reiterate what someone said in an earlier comment, just because it's in a book doesn't mean it's correct. I have, in fact, proven a handful of such histories to be incorrect. Also, ironically, some of these published sources incorporate data gleaned from a headstone.

Obituaries are in your list of qualified sources, but in an earlier comment, you really panned obituaries, calling them a "third-level source". Why this apparent contradiction? Also, I'd be interested to learn the technical differences between source levels. I understand that obituaries can be inaccurate given that the information is second-hand in nature, coming from a survivor. But it might also be accurate and, again, the only source available. I have a Frederick Miller ancestor for whom I haven't a single primary source pointing to the name of his father, even his obituary fails to name his father despite a lengthy story about Frederick's ancestors. All it says about his father is what county he lived in and that his father "died falling from a pear tree onto a fence". Then one day I was paging through burial records from a Moravian church in that named county and came across an entry for a Godfrey Henry Miller who "died falling from a pear tree onto a fence". The surname is the same, the county is the same, Godfrey's dates are perfect to be Frederick's father, and I'm sorry, but that cause of death is just too unusual to be a coincidence. Information in the obit subsequently led me to Godfrey's parents, too. But that obituary is the only thing that ties the generations together. It would seem to me that obits can be very valuable sources provided one understands that the data CAN be inaccurate and should be corroborated if at all possible.

I'm sorry, I'm frustrated and it's showing. I really like the standards you lay out, but they are stated in such a black and white manner. Decades of doing genealogy has convinced me there is a lot of gray in it that isn't BAD, per se, it just needs to be NOTED.

Is there a perspective on infant deaths and stillborns in a family in the context of "Genealogically Defined". Often there is a source that these offspring existed, e.g., mortality data in census, but not specifically what year they were born and died. If I have a family in the United States identified in the 1880 census that have six children over the next 20 years and three died before 1900, we only know about them from the 1900 census data regarding the number of births for a mother and the number of surviving children in 1900. There is insufficient data to even create a profile for these three children. Did one die in infancy and another at age 18? We may never know.

In such a case, how must the three children that born and died between 1880 and 1900 be documented to meet the "Genealogically Defined" criteria. I suggest we add this scenario, and similar scenarios, to this page.

Does an Obituary count as a source?

I have been researching all 4 sides of my family for at least 25 years. After reading this page I suppose to my disillusionment I have been doing it all wrong. But they say it's never to late to begin again. I'm pleased to have come to this page for correction and for guidance. Thanks

As a newbie to WikiTree I’m exploring and came across your page on ‘genealogically defined’. This is so helpful, thank you!

Here is a g2g post named "How does a "Genealogically Defined" notation value add?:

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

A date of death, and a record seem to be missing from the hypothetical.

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."

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?

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.

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.

Beautiful! Wish everybody would stop by and read this. :o)

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.

For our reference: List of profiles that have been tagged as Genealogically Defined:

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

Great idea. Look great.

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

• WikiTree Profiles that use this source

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