SUE'S COOK BOOK RECIPE #7 PRIMARY VS SECONDARY SOURCES Part 1 Primary Sources Definition: A Primary Source is a record that was produced by an eye-witness to the event. Primary Sources are the kind of sources we should all be looking for to document the events in the lives of our ancestors. These are the ones that provide the best possible proofs of the events in their lives. Examples of Primary Sources: Birth, Marriage, and Death Certificates; Church records of Baptisms and Burials; official court records; and other records where the person giving the information was actually present when the event occurred. I'm sure you can all think of other examples. With this kind of proof, we can't go wrong. Only if we can't find a Primary Source should we use a Secondary Source to document an event. Part 2 Secondary Sources Definition: A Secondary Source is one where the information is given by someone who was NOT an eye-witness to the event. Secondary sources are based on a variety of things, but not on first hand knowledge. Examples: newspaper articles, family tradition, town lore, hand copies of hand copies of hand copies of primarily sources (The more they are copied, the more errors occur!), documents produced by people who were not present when the event occurred, compiled genealogies that are not thoroughly documented with Primary Sources. I'm sure you can also think of other examples here too. Secondary Sources are useful as clues and to fill in gaps when primary sources do not exist. But always use them with caution. If you can't find a Primary Source, then you need to use several Secondary Sources that are in agreement with each other to document the event. There are two types of sources that need a little extra attention: census records and various types of compiled data bases. Cont. in part 2...