Richard, Well said! And congratulations on making this point so effectively. Your dilemma, however, is not isolated to just the field of Family History but, in fact, covers all forms of documentation research. I used to be called on to do such research in technology and scientific fields from time to time and I found the "rule of thumb" was that:- a single source should only be considered as an "indication that …." Two differing sources gave "differing opinions that …." while two results the same gave "it is confirmed by X sources that …." (For more than two sources both phrases can apply in which case it becomes "a majority opinion holds that ….") The ideal situation seems to be at least three INDEPENDENT and agreeing sources at which point you can say, "It is generally agreed that …." Multiple sources disagreeing call for "The majority seem to consider that ….." Of course you MUST quote ALL sources as accurately as possible and "if legally available" a copy should be included with the report. A citation is the least you MUST record. I emphasized the word INDEPENDENT above because you frequently find that two reports are taken from the same original data (i.e., the indexing of census records!) so their agreeing is not an agreement of two sources, but simply a duplication of a single source. (Figuring the difference between INDEPENDENT reports and SOME-SOURCE reports out can be quite challenging but should always be considered.) You will realize from the above that it was rare that anything could be considered a "Sure Thing" and that is simply because all conclusions found in records are subject to the whims of human error, and interpretation, in some way or another. Always be on the lookout for another confirming, or differing, result. The more you find the more accurate your findings will be. At the same time even a single report is important as long as it is placed in the right "perspective." Malcolm Archive CD Books Canada Inc. President: Malcolm Moody PO Box 11 Manotick Ontario, K4M 1A2 Canada. (613) 692-2667 1-888-692-2660 - Toll-free WEB SITE: http://www.ArchiveCDBooks.ca FACEBOOK: http://tinyurl.com/ACDB-Can-on-Facebook On 23 Feb, 2012, at 3:00 AM, nova-scotia-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:50:44 -0400 > From: Richard Noble <nobler@accesswave.ca> > Subject: Re: [NS-L] Verification of records .... > To: NOVA-SCOTIA-L@rootsweb.com > Message-ID: <000701ccf168$f9824a20$012d8e18@ricocpv8lc3ftj> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > > While we are considered to be genealogists, I often think family historian > might be a better name. > > One problem we run into is to verify all data. But realistically that might > not always be possible. > Thus, if I look on the 1901 census and it has a birth date, should I use it? > Those dates are well known to not be reliable, although often times the > dates are correct. > It is no different with names on census records.