It looks like Family Tree Maker has finally started implementing the evidence standards in their software.  It's about time.      There have been several excellent publications and articles about evaluating evidence.  The concepts John mentioned have been explained in more detail in the following resources, among others.  _Evidence: A Special Issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly_, 87 (September 1999).   (No longer available for purchase but you may find it in a larger genealogical library.) Elizabeth Shown Mills, _Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian_. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1997. Elizabeth Shown Mills, _Evidence Explained!_.  Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2007.   (Also available as a downloadable digital version from Footnote.com) There is also a laminated  _Evidence Analysis, A Research Process Map_ that can be purchased from the Board for Certification of Genealogists.   It is a two-sided page with information from _Evidence Explained!_ _The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual_. Washington, DC: Board for Certification of Genealogists, 2000.   Also see their website at www.bcgcertification.org Mills, Elizabeth Shown, ed. _Professional Genealogy:A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers and Librarians._ Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2001. The "Clarity" term used by Family Tree Maker appears to be one they created as it is not part of the evidence standards. The evidence standards as discussed in the publications I listed above are: Sources:  Original vs. Derivative Information: Primary vs. Secondary Evidence: Direct vs. Indirect While many people still use the terminology "primary source" and "secondary source" those terms were abandoned when the evidence standards were created over a decade ago.    The problem with those terms is a *source* can have both primary information and secondary information.  For example, a death certificate has *primary information* - generally, the name of the deceased and the date of death and location and may have *secondary information* - the birthdate and birth location of the person and possibly his parents.   The death information is usually first hand information - reported at the time of the event by someone with firsthand knowledge while the birth information may be reported years after the birth event many times by those who were not present at the birth.   On the other hand, the death certificate of an infant who died shortly after birth might include primary information about both the birth and the death.  Classifying the *information* in the source as primary and secondary rather than the source as a whole is much clearer and easier than trying to classify a source one way or the other when there is both primary (first-hand) and secondary (second-hand) information together in the source. Rebecca Christensen --- On Sat, 1/10/09, Jon Pace <[email protected]> wrote: From: Jon Pace <[email protected]> Subject: [PACE] Source reliability - ratings Q To: [email protected] Date: Saturday, January 10, 2009, 2:31 PM This Christmas I received Family Tree Maker 2009 and the companion book The Official Guide to Family Tree Maker 2009. I'd been using Legacy Family Tree 7.0 for a few months, but the explanations in the book made FTM 2009 far more useful for me. The recent discussion of source reliability have me focused on "rating" (FTM term - not sure it's universal) the quality of my sources. I've been debating answers to questions that have surely long been settled, so I would greatly appreciate my more experienced research kin answering a few newbie questions. The four quality measures & my questions: #1 - Source: Original or Derivative Original: The source is an original or image copy of the original document. Derivative: The source is derived (transcribed, translated, etc.) from the original. I'm largely looking at microfilmed records on Ancestry.com, so those are Original. #2 - Clarity: Clear or Marginal Clear: The portion of the source that pertains to this fact is clear. Marginal: The portion of the source that pertains to this fact is not clear. I can read some handwriting better than others, and some documents were better preserved before microfilming than others. Most of mine are Clear. #3 - Information: Primary or Secondary Primary: The person who supplied this source had firsthand knowledge of the fact. Secondary: The person who supplied this source had only secondhand knowledge of the fact. This is where I waver: Is census form head-of-household's birth date first or secondhand information? I don't remember being born - I know my birthday because my parents taught it to me. I'm leaning to secondhand information. Is census state of birth firsthand information for anyone? I've seen census forms where the enumerator appears to have been lazy and put all the kids down as born in the current state when I know the family moved in after the first couple were born elsewhere (and is reflected properly on other censuses). However, a parent would know where their child was born if everything is recorded properly. Can two firsthand sources disagree on an issue? I don't know what to indicate here. What about spellings of names? Is a census form firsthand? Draft registration card? Anything? Lastly, is date of death on a headstone first or secondhand knowledge? #4 - Evidence: Direct or Indirect Direct: The source plainly states the fact I have just entered. Indirect: The source suggests this fact but does not plainly state it. Proof will require better or additional evidence from other sources. Odd question on this one: My father's social security death index card shows the wrong date of death for whatever reason (6 days later). Does something that's just plain wrong even count as indirect evidence? Thanks for your guidance, Jon