RS3100 wrote: ↑03 Oct 2023 14:19
I add such individuals to a named list, "Unconfirmed Relatives", together with a box expression to show a question mark against those list members in charts and diagrams. A note attached to the individual record explains the evidence that supports or suggests the relationship, and the reasons why it is not conclusive.
By suppressing or editing fact sentences, together with the use of {note} it is also possible to include any doubts and the reasons for them in narrative reports.
Yes, this is what I do to some extent!
But this and what others have said they do are all “work arounds” rather than a native way to indicate multiple potential bits of data and relationships. It is obvious that my statement above has gone astray of my intended comment. I’m not saying that one can not record the data using notes, software specific flag/indicators and various trick (? In the name), what I am saying is that natively I can’t enter (in the case above) 4 men as persons in the database, connect them all to the child, mark one with a source as saying this is the story the family believes and another source that says medically it is impossible for a human child to gestate for 11 months, then mark the other three as possibilities fathers with sources to indicate why (or why not) they could be the biological father. Then, over time add more sources, and maybe make a hypothesis on the likelihood of one being the father. Whether a conclusion is made or not, all of my work, all of my hypotheses, all of my good and bad decisions would be retained for others to criticize and critique. All of this would be native to the software (and GEDCOM).
It's not clear when the conception you have described occurred but, if it was within the last 50 years, it is certainly possible (even if unlikely) that a woman could have conceived a child by her deceased husband weeks/months or even years after his death by with the use of a frozen sperm 'donation'. Such an occurrence is perhaps more likely if the deceased underwent treatment some time before his death which was likely to have rendered him infertile as a result of that treatment.
This doesn't alter any concern about whether GEDCOM (or any other database format) provides a sound method of recording research investigations rather than 'simple' conclusions, but it can certainly be argued that the provision of a supported method of annotating any factual conclusion with a record of any investigatory action taken should satisfy the vast majority of needs. 'We' tend to accept that all children found to be born within a period marriage were the legitimate offspring of the couple, when there is only one person (the mother) who could possibly know whether that is a certainty. Isn't that a conclusion rather than evidence? Birth Certificates and Baptismal records, can only tell you what was alleged to have happened?
But you are right about birth certificates and baptism records as being only advisory and not 100% conclusive.
My point and not to diminish anyone’s solutions to my exact example still is that GEDCOM is a more “conclusive” tool not always suitable to pure data collection. Yes I could use a none-GEDCOM flag, yes I could use a NOTE, yes I could use any number of other things to indicate data potentially associated with a particular person, but this is still assigning data to an individual a “conclusive act”!
Most people do “directed research”, for example the birth record of an individual from around a particular date with a specific name and parentage in a given church book. But a researcher can also be doing “data collection” were they don’t have a birth name, don’t know an exact year (maybe a 10 year range) just the location and a surname. They would be collecting all individuals born to that surname at that church and time range, record the parents names and the birth date. Where do you in genealogy software collect that data? We may know later the characteristics of other family members and we may be able to use that data at a later stage to reduce the possible volume of candidates. Where does that data go in the software?
I do all of this with paper and some electronic technology, but not in any genealogy software (I have several different programs), because that rely more on the conclusions I make over time to report on or expose any possible matches to my next chunk of data!
natashahouseman wrote: ↑03 Oct 2023 17:36
Thanks. I was thinking of something of a list or a flag with report suppression. I am beginning to think i need to write my own user guide for this including formats, decisions, reasoning etc. I can see how amazing FH is going to be for the analysis that ancestry just can't do and I am excited by the potential.
There is another place where you can record an assessment of your data sources - in the Source record as per the attached image.
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Peter Rollin
Running FH 7.0.22 and AS 7.8.6 64 bit in Windows 11
If anyone wants to explore a genealogy software package that is designed specifically for evidence gathering and analysis leading to documented conclusions, but not for directly building family structures then my suggestion is to explore https://evidentiasoftware.com. A trial version is available as is detailed guidance and video support, but it can be very time consuming to follow the exacting process and the recording methods the software prescribes/imposes and is probably best used when applied to a selective group of key individuals rather than an entire project.
