This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/JW.2ADI/820.2.1.1.1.3.1.1 Message Board Post: The census is no less primary than a death certificate. Both rely on the knowledge of the informant and the dilligence of the recorder. In both cases, the record needs to be weighed against others to assess its ACCURACY, which is a different issue. One of my grand-uncles was the informant on the death certificates of his mother and two of his siblings. On all three certificates, he gave a different birth date and birth place for his mother. All three were wrong (and all three are in the LDS IGI, looking very official as extracted county records, not patron submissions). The most reliable date is the one given by the woman herself in a pension application. Bottom line: accuracy is independent of whether a record is primary or secondary. Yes, the CADI, as an index, is secondary, but it's an index of primary records, which makes it more likely to be accurate than the "hearsay" of family tradition. But in this case, the CADI agrees with the five census records, so there is no reason to suspect that this particular index entry is erroneous. You're supposed to be able to use a little judgment in assessing the validity of records. The more the records agree, the more validity they have. And when the records disagree with the story, you don't ignore the records, you change the story.