As a qualified historian I would say that all these documents have their problems, it is the way you use the information that counts I have found deliberate and unintentional wrong information on all types birth/marriage/death records. However, saying these documents can only be considered secondary sources, puts into doubt probably about 95% of what most academic historians would consider primary sources. All historical sources are either descriptive, normative or a mixture of both. You cannot have a document that is part primary source and part secondary, though you can have a source that is part plausible ( i.e. descriptive), and part implausible/suspect (normative). My personal position is that I regard these documents as primary sources as they describe what the informant believed to be true at that point in time, or what they wanted people to believe. Just because the deliberate misinformation sends researchers on a wild goose chase does not automatically designate them as secondary sources. They are the closest record to actually what happened and involved people who participated in the event so they must be primary. Cheers Gabrielle -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, 4 February 2014 7:19 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [FHU] Primary Evidence <snipped> .. UK genealogists would say the information about the birth is secondary (a) because of the time lapse and (b) because the groom might have an interest in showing he was "of age"... </snipped> My two-penneth: I would take the same line as Adrian. The Marriage Certificate is Primary evidence for the Marriage Ceremony. All else is Secondary, including the parentage of the couple. I have at least one bride with an apparently deceased father, invented for the purposes of the certificate. John --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message