Tom > > Cheryl > > I should think we are all always in the realm of person-based genealogy... You may need to review what is meant by record-based genealogy. I described it quite well in the intro post. > it seems to me that more-than-one of the participants is suggesting > we can NEVER be certain that recordA about Tom Wetmore > refers to the same Tom Wetmore as recordB. How the > researcher stores, organizes, accesses, or displays either > record won't change that. That makes HOW to store, > organize, access, or display sort of like nailing Jello to > the wall: certainly do-able if you work hard enough, but > just as certainly futile in the long run. I don't understand how the inherent uncertainty of genealogical records has any bearing on the need to record information or on how to construct with gelatin. > As someone famous once said, now there you go again. ALL genealogy is > record-based ... Again, it would be helpful if you learned what the terms mean. > It's very difficult to follow about persona vs person > sometimes. Evidence does not exist in a vacuum any more > than people do. IF there's people, there's evidence; one > can always remove references to evidence if one can > conclusively prove it's irrelevant. IME, though, if I don't > SAY I looked hither, thither and yon, someone will suggest I > missed thither. So putting it in and then debunking it is > easier on my nerves. To debunk it, I need to attach it to > who it might but doesn't concern. You are describing an awkward way to handle a record-based problem in a person-based paradigm. Are you suggesting that your persons records should contain information about every record you have considered and decided wasn't that person? As a way of remembering that you have considered that record? Why not let that record stand on its own as a persona record that has yet to be attached to a person? > > Wouldn't you want all that evidence information codified somehow inside > > your genealogy program so you can search for names, search for dates, > > search for > > places, see the relationships mentioned in the evidence, > > and so on? How would you want your genealogy application to support you > > after you have "crossed the chasm?" > No. I want all that evidence raw if I need to re-evaluate > it. I don't want it filtered, as it will be by extracting > bits of it to codify. As someone mentioned, the bit you > don't extract may be the only important bit in there. And > creating a database for the purpose of comparing documents > when the documents to be compared are NOT identical in > content is going to drag AI into it; I'm not up to speed on > the current state of AI, but I know as recently as Y2K, it > couldn't make the same sort of judgments a people can > because people STILL use unconscious, subconscious, and even > subliminal info in analysis. Did you think about the example of having 100s of records that might apply to people you are looking for, and you haven't been able to decide who they are yet (this IS record-based genealogy by the way)? Eventually you will reach that point in your own work, and when you do you will need to take some steps to help you better organize, access, and understand the evidence you have collected. Only by having that data in some codified form will you be able to work effectively. The whole point of this thread is to try to get people who have reached this point to describe how they handle the situation now, and how they might like a genealogical program to help them. There have now been many posts on this thread by people who have reached that point and have given some very good advice as to how to handle it. If you think you must refer back to the original evidence every time you need to reconsider a fact from any of those 100s of records you will have great difficulty getting anything done. Tom