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Here are the previous 13 Rules.
- Rule One: When the baby was born, the mother was there.
- Rule Two: Absence of an obituary or death record does not mean the person is still alive.
- Rule Three: Every person who ever lived has a unique birth order and a unique set of biological parents.
- Rule Four: There are always more records.
- Rule Five: You cannot get blood out of a turnip.
- Rule Six: Records move.
- Rule Seven: Water and genealogical information flow downhill
- Rule Eight: Everything in genealogy is connected (butterfly)
- Rule Nine: There are patterns everywhere
- Rule Ten: Read the fine print
- Rule Eleven: Even a perfect fit can be wrong
- Rule Twelve: The end is always there
- Rule Thirteen: Genealogists abhor a blank field
As I said back on July 11, 2020, you never know, there might be another rule somewhere out there in the genealogical universe waiting to be discovered. Well, here it is:
No. 14: You can guess but you can't make assumptions.
This is one of the more complex rules. Historical research involves locating, reading, and extracting significant information from records that include information about someone in your ancestral line. You then draw conclusions (opinions) about the extracted information. Let me illustrate with a simplified example.
Here is a United States Federal Census Record for the Ove C. Overson family among others.
You can click on the image to see an enlarged view. This information in the question about Place of Birth indicates that he was born in Denmark. The census record also calculates his birth year from his stated age. You could assume that he was, in fact, born in Denmark. You could also assume that he was 39 years old. However, from the information in the census record both of these assumptions could be wrong. Dates and places on U.S. Federal Census records can be completely wrong. Many budding genealogists and some with more experience have been misled by both date and place as they appear in the census records.
An assumption implies that you are assuming that what you have already found is correct and by acting on that assumption you are committing yourself to a cause of action. The definition of the word assumption is a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof. This last part, without proof, is the important part for genealogy. Seeing that someone was born in Denmark or any other place in the census records is not proof. It is good information. It is a starting point but we are not warranted in adopting the information without further research. This applies to any other information.
What is a guess? A guess is an estimate or conjecture. In other words, when we guess we are not certain. Guessing is good as long as it is followed by real research into contemporary historic documents. As long as you realize you are guessing, you can keep from forming a wrong conclusion. One patron came into the Brigham Young University Family History Library some years ago asking for help in finding her ancestor in Germany. She came back weekly for months asking the same question. She had concluded that her ancestor was born in Germany because that is what was written in the U.S. Census. It took all those months to finally convince her that we needed more information about his birthplace and that concluding that he was born in Germany was not helpful during the time period in question when "Germany" did not exist as a separate country. She finally showed up with a handwritten note that told the place where he was born. She could have saved a lot of time by looking through what she already had.
I could tell dozens if not hundreds of stories that illustrate the danger of making assumptions hence this new Rule of Genealogy.
It would help if you linked each of them to the blog post devoted to them.
ReplyDeleteYour rules are right on!
ReplyDeleteThanks, James. A most helpful reminder! And much appreciated.... In one family, I am dealing with Canadian census records, also death register and tombstone information from both Nova Scotia and Ireland, trying to fathom dates of birth for what is a family of 3 siblings (confirmed) and what appears to be a 4th sibling (my hypothesis). The inconsistency between these different, unverified "sources" leads me to suspect some latitude or variation, such that I can indeed suspect a family of 4 or more siblings, despite the absence of real conclusive evidence .... I continue to question, to look and to research. So thank you for the reminder in terms of a clear ( and crisp) Rule ....
ReplyDeleteHere is a difficulty with US census records: 1850 census states the person was born in Germany. This may be either ignorance on the part of the enumerator or It could have been a general way of explaining where a person was from. After all we don't know where Oldenburg is, but we will call it Germany since some form of German language is spoken at home. Also at that time, say 1850, there may have been several towns, cities or duchies named Oldenburg. Later documents showed the family was from the Grand Duchy Oldenburg. The same may be true of Prussia, that vast area of what is now modern day northern Germany. There is no real substitute for knowing the village, town, city, or other governmental area from where the person or family emigrated. Sometimes a name map is useful, but uncertain. Generalized areas, e.g., "Rhineland" are also too large to pinpoint the family origin. This problem may also be true of other areas, particularly in Eastern Europe where place names have changed both anciently and recently. So it all boils down to name, time, and place. But, if the exact place is known at
ReplyDeletea given time the research can become easier.