* Multiple evidence of event

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ColeValleyGirl
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

All I'm trying to say is that a lot of 'best practice' doesn't depend on the tool you're using and if you restrict yourself to learning from these forums, you'll be missing out of a lot of useful guidance.

I'll add this before I go away: FH doesn't always enable you to do things in the way that's most helpful -- it's the best product around IMO but it still has deficiencies. There are (sometimes convoluted) ways around most of them but understanding the basics of the hobby you've taken up might help you decide what compromises make sense for you.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by AdrianBruce »

ColinMc wrote:... I made my choice to work with FH, and that's what I want to learn to use to the best of my ability. If some of that goes against best genealogical practice, I have no problems with that.
So I care what terms mean within the program I am using. ...
And that's absolutely right and proper. I kinda like looking at "best genealogical practice" in the outside world(?) because of my background in IT and maths - it means I have a logical view (or I think I have) and the intellectual challenge of looking at "best genealogical practice" in the outside world is interesting in itself. But that's just me.

All I would want to say is that best use of FH is surprisingly hard to pin down - and that's because it's designed to be used by lots of people, who each have lots of different preferences. Each person will have their own idea of "best". There's no point, for instance, in Calico Pie coming up with a definition of Primary (say) if (a) loads of people don't use it, (b) some use the usual UK definition and (c) some use the high-powered American definition which concentrates on the underlying information in the source but also needs the separate concept of whether the physical source is an original or a derivative - e.g. transcript, etc. (Sorry, I didn't have the time to make that last bit shorter).

Another example is the debate over whether to split sources right down to the level of the individual entry, or to lump them up into bundles - some of us go down the first route, some down the second. Each of us, I'm sure, thinks that our way is the best way of using FH.

It's not that we're playing intellectual games over whether XXX or YYY represent the best definition / method / usage / menu options / report styles within FH. It's just that different people will come to different options.

I can only advise that the most effective method of deciding between the options is to try the different suggestions out on one fact or whatever, run off your favourite reports and see whether the resulting reports makes sense to you now and whether you think it might do so in future if web-site XXXX closes down. And whatever happens, you will think, "Well that seemed like a good idea at the time but now?", and you'll change to a new method.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by tatewise »

ColinMc was asking about a summary definition of Source, Citation, etc.
Does glossary:sources|> Source Records come anywhere close, while putting it in the context of FH?
It is one of the topics in how_to:key_features_for_newcomers|> Key Features for Newcomers that all newcomers should study.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by AdrianBruce »

Works for me, Mike. It seems to highlight and explain the majors issues such as splitting / lumping source-records in a neutral way. I will have, however, a different viewpoint from beginners, obviously.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Well, because I know you want a purists view :D even if I'm not a purist all the time (contrary to popular belief).

A source provides information, which MAY be evidence but only if it pertains to the question you're asking.

For example, an 1841 census that tells me X was living in the same household as Y doesn't tell me that X is Y's parent, even if the ages sort of make sense. It only tells me X's residence in 1841, and that Y was living there as well. There might be other sources that corroborate the identification of X as Y's parent, and you could decide to use the 1841 census as additional evidence. Or you might just be making an unsupported assumption if you don't have additional evidence.

And if X was living in the same household as Y in 1841, and the question was 'who was Y's husband' then X's presence is definitely information not evidence.

On the other hand, if a birth certificate says the parents of X were Y and Z, then that information is evidence about X's parent. (You may or may not have confidence in the evidence, based on other sources, but that's a different issue).

At least the page then moves on to talk about information rather than evidence.

I'm not going to get into Title and Short Title, except to note that the example given for Title isn't worth a d*mn if you're dealing with sources more complex than certificates which are (relatively) easy to locate, at least in the UK (definitely not in the States where there isn't a central source).

And I haven't slogged through the rest of it -- except where I'm lumping (which has its place) I don't personally use citations.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by tatewise »

I think it a little misleading (in FH/GEDCOM context) to say you don't use Citations, because they are what link Facts to Sources. I suspect what you mean is you don't fill in any of the Citation fields (except when lumping).
That is effectively what the [kb]|[/kb] says too.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Of course you're right mike -- I cite my sources, but don't use the Citation fields.

Did you have any comment on the important part of my comment -- that you refer to evidence where you should refer to information? Specifically, this sentence:
A Source is usually a document of any kind - written or oral - that provides evidence.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by AdrianBruce »

Um. At the risk of turning normal people right off, I have to say that I'm happy with a one-liner that says that sources provide evidence. Except under rare conditions, we wouldn't be recording something in a source record unless it provided evidence for some argument, be it positive or negative, direct or indirect.

Certainly, when you look simply at a list of source records, there is no context of a specific argument that might be supported, in which case sources contain only information *in that context*. But given why the things are there in the first place, I think that I am happy to say that "evidence" is fine - indeed it conveys *why* we have them.

Otherwise we are in danger of ending up like Niels Bohr on Quantum Theory, who, according to a recent book that I read, was actually wonderfully precise in relating what Quantum Theory could answer - it's just that no-one could understand him....
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by AdrianBruce »

Apologies if anyone thinks that the above is irrelevant and heavy going, but it does relate to our desire to get Mike's definitions as good as possible and it takes time to make things as short and concise as possible.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by tatewise »

In my defence, I don't think I actually wrote the Introduction which originates from many years ago.
( Contrary to popular belief I didn't write every word in the [kb]|[/kb] :D )
It does shade the definition by saying usually and goes on to talk about information which is reiterated in the Calico Pie Help File quote and reinforced by the heading Information recorded within a source.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by davidf »

AdrianBruce wrote:Um. At the risk of turning normal people right off, I have to say that I'm happy with a one-liner that says that sources provide evidence. Except under rare conditions, we wouldn't be recording something in a source record unless it provided evidence for some argument, be it positive or negative, direct or indirect.

Certainly, when you look simply at a list of source records, there is no context of a specific argument that might be supported, in which case sources contain only information *in that context*. But given why the things are there in the first place, I think that I am happy to say that "evidence" is fine - indeed it conveys *why* we have them. ....
Presumably being by the above "abnormal", I think I take issue with what might appear to be being said - hopefully to extract a relevant point.

Falling back on the academic use of "Source" and "Citation" - where for instance, the Source might be referenced as "Encyclopedia Britannica Edition ABC", but the citation is "(Encyclopedia Britannica Edition ABC): Entry on Huguenots (vol xxx p yyyy), paragraph 6"

Sources as "works" (Censuses, Encyclopedia, Diaries, Photo Albums etc) provide evidence, but often evidence about a lot of different things ("Information")! The citation should then point unambiguously to the specific bit of information within the source that provides evidence of the fact in question. It is sometime helpful to record (in FH in the "Text From Source" field of the citation) the specific bit of information that you believe provides the "evidence" in question.

Sometimes the source will be very specific (e.g. "WW1 Victory Medal inscribed to Victor Emanuel Simon Smith No 122345 in possession of ....") and having a citation that points to the whole source without qualification may be sufficient for the fact in question (e.g. "served in the First World War"). In this case the citation fields might be left blank.

I don't think we (as maintainers of a FH project) record anything in "sources" (as opposed to the list of sources). The authors/creators record things in sources. We may maintain things in citations.

We underestimate the value of citations! I think it would help people to be more aware of citations if the FH properties box highlighted the citation area (highlighted in Green in illustration below).
Screenshot from 2019-03-07 11-34-51.png
Screenshot from 2019-03-07 11-34-51.png (46.82 KiB) Viewed 9974 times
Purists may claim (with justification) that the whole of the yellow left hand side of the properties box is actually to do with citations and not sources (despite the "Show Sources" icon) - the upper "sources" bit is merely to select which source the citation is pointing to!
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by tatewise »

Yes, BUT that needs to be put in the context of split or lumped Sources.
Everything you say is valid for lumped Sources such as Encyclopedia Britannica Edition ABC, but in the FH GEDCOM model suffers the problem of database duplication if that Citation is used more than once.
But for split Sources all that Citation detail is inside a Source record such as Encyclopedia Britannica on Huguenots with the edition, volume, page, etc, in the Publication Information.

That is quite well explained in glossary:sources|> Source Records (not all written by me) and you are welcome to edit it where necessary.

I agree the the Sources For pane should be labelled Citations.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

At the risk of turning normal people right off, I have to say that I'm happy with a one-liner that says that sources provide evidence
Whereas I think that sources provide information that family historians interpret as evidence for a particular hypothesis ('fact')... a sources is simply a 'container' of information.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by AdrianBruce »

I wouldn't disagree with anything that you wrote, David. The whole area of what's evidence and and what's information is context dependent ("Special Relativity for Genealogists"?) which is partly why I'm not chasing down every rabbit hole trying to resolve every view. Consistency is also important and if the Calico Pie help file refers to information, then I think it good practice to also refer to information. Nothing I detest more than instructions that use Term 1 on one page, Term 2 on another and Term 3 in the user Interface, all for the same thing. Except you're not sure if it's the same thing...
I don't think we (as maintainers of a FH project) record anything in "sources" (as opposed to the list of sources). The authors/creators record things in sources.

Yes - I do try to write source-records in order to avoid being out-pedanted by someone (not you in this context, David!) pointing out that it's a record of a source, not the source itself. (To which my unwritten reaction is always - yes, you never complain about someone talking about individuals in a database, saying it should be individual-records, do you?)

The issue of the bit in green - this illustrates why it gets very difficult to agree on terminology. I tend to refer to that, in the context of FH, as a "citation" - I once got "mansplained" at by someone who explained that a citation was something in a printed report. They couldn't come up with a simple name for the bit in yellow / green.

Again, apologies to anyone who thinks this irrelevant to them.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

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In my defence, I don't think I actually wrote the Introduction which originates from many years ago.
( Contrary to popular belief I didn't write every word in the Knowledge Base :D )
It does shade the definition by saying usually and goes on to talk about information which is reiterated in the Calico Pie Help File quote and reinforced by the heading Information recorded within a source.
Sorry Mike -- you've written so much, I tend to assume (the cardinal sin in a family historian!)

I think if we just lose the 'evidence' word in that first section, we'll be much closer to things like the Genealogy Standards produced by the Board for Certification of Genealogist (with apologies to those people who don't care about such things). I've had a go at amending it -- shout if you think I've discarded anything important.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

We underestimate the value of citations!
I think there's a difference between 'underestimating the value of citations' and choosing not to use what is a very poor set of facilities (based on the Gedcom standard) for recording our assessment of those sources, and how we arrived at a particular conclusion by combining information from multiple sources.

Even in very simple cases (e.g. one line baptism record for X, dau of AB and his wife C, date from the parish registers of Someparish Somewhere) there's very often a need to explain precisely why we think this X is our ancestor rather than the X from the next parish along with the same surname baptised in the same year... Yes, it's necessary to record the link to the source we eventually decided to use, but we also need to explain why we discarded a variety of other sources, and whether or not we're confident we looked in all the likely parishes (or couldn't access the records for Tinyparish, not for ChapelWhereTheLastIncumbent took the registers home with him and burned them... so there's still some doubt about the identification of X).

I tend to combine as much detail as possible in the Source Title with a narrative note to the Fact or even a separate attached document explaining my reasoning where the selection of relevant sources hasn't been straightforward and/or it isn't obvious how the source(s) support my conclusion. Others won't (and needn't) go to those lengths.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by tatewise »

I am happy with your [kb]|[/kb] edit, but have reworded it a little so it is less verbose, and revised the bit where it said a person is a source and substituted interview after photograph.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by AdrianBruce »

ColeValleyGirl wrote:... there's very often a need to explain precisely why we think this X is our ancestor rather than the X from the next parish along with the same surname baptised in the same year... ...
Agreed - my default tactic is to include that in the Note on the Source-Record in question. Occasionally, it goes in a free-standing Note-Record linked to multiple Source-Records, particularly when it is necessary / useful to link a series of Source-Records, e.g. a series of 4 passengers lists making up someone's voyage from Atlantic City to Calcutta and back, where the individual identifications to said lady are a touch flimsy taken one at a time but put together...

And this really is important for everyone - you need to think about, and record somewhere, why you think that a "physical" source refers to your chap, rather than someone else of the same name.

Proof of Identity is actually more important, and more complex usually, than Proof of the actual Value. I think.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by davidf »

Trying to think my way round this a bit more:

Mike mentions again the issue of duplication of (detail) on citations in "lumper" records
Helen mentions the need to annotate various things and "a very poor set of facilities (based on the Gedcom standard) for recording our assessment"

For "lumpers" duplication is only a problem if the citation is holding non-unique information. If the citation is merely linking a fact to a source there is no "redundancy" or duplicated information. The problem arises if we try to include say a transcription of a Household's census transcription in the "Text from Source" field (of the citation). "Splitters" "solve" that problem by splitting the source into small units (conceivably the lines on a census page(s) relating to a household) and then entering the transcript as a note on the source.

As a "lumper" possibly because of my background, I dislike splitting what to me seems to be a "thing" (be it a census or a muster role or a parish register) partly because it seems to me to be a "work-around" for the limitations of the GEDCOM/FH design and partly because I want things like neighbouring households / other baptisms on the same day to be in the same source. If you have split a source and you later discover that the next baptism over the page is for a twin of your original entry, you tend to live with "two sources" (or you start merging sources - and source collation is a librarian's job not a genealogist's). However I suspect that the divide between "lumpers" and "splitters" is as big as that between "leave" and "remain" - but thankfully a lot more civil. (Do I have them the right way round - splitters should be Leavers?)

In database design you avoid duplication by "normalisation". (In relational database terms you create a new data entity kept in a separate table and you provide links based on record ID. In Hierarchical/Tree databases you create a new branch to hold the data and tie it back to other bits of data by references.) This is ideally what we want to do.

But before doing this we need to be clear what we want to hold and where ideally it should be held.

1. Sometimes it is useful to hold transcripts or partial transcripts of a record. If the transcript applies to multiple facts (potentially on multiple people) - such as a household census transcription - we have possible duplication

We can split the transcripts down but we lose context. Giving "Tailor's Apprentice" as "Text from Source" in the citation for an Occupation fact does not really advance our knowledge - you might as well stick with what you have recorded in the actual fact - and if there is something else specific about that fact it goes in the fact note. If you got this from the Census It is probably also useful to record that he was a 16yo Boarding in a house where the head of household was a Tailor - and who had a daughter Emily (turns out useful when 10 years later your now time-served 26 yo Tailor is Head of Household with a wife called Emily!). You don't want to over split.

So where should a transcript "sit"? If it is a total transcript of a source - quite likely if, as a splitter, you have sufficiently split the source - it can sit on the source. But if it is a transcript of that bit of the source necessary to support the fact in context it should surely sit on the citation?

2. You may want to record your evaluation of a Source as to its general reliability, completeness and (possibly) availability.

Such an evaluation logically sits as a note to the Source. It is an annotation of the source - it does not form part of the source.

3. You may/should record how you decided that particular information in the source either supports a fact or leads you to deducing a fact.

For "lumpers" this should ideally sit as a note on the citation (you are justifying the link - which is what the citation is). For splitters, provided you have split the source sufficiently that that the citation is now a one to one relationship (one fact one source) it can sit as a note on the source - preferably a different note to the one about the general reliability of the source. If one source (such as a Household Census Record) is supporting multiple facts you have to make clear in your note which fact is being supported (or have separate notes)

So how can we try to if not square the circle at least sort of polygon it? We are looking to normalise these notes (remove them from one data entity (the source or the specific citation) and hold them separately, and once only, and then link them to where they are required).

Well I think you can (at least within FH):
Screenshot from 2019-03-07 16-00-03.png
Screenshot from 2019-03-07 16-00-03.png (33.59 KiB) Viewed 9945 times
The above shows notes attached to the citation. One of the notes (Transcript of Bapt Record) is shared between two facts (thereby avoiding duplication). The other note is actually shared with another individual. Both Notes show up on the Notes Tab in the Record Window as shared notes.

It's a bit messy - in FH you have to add them through the All tab on the Properties box. I presume it is possible to template them into diagrams and reports. Are they standard GEDCOM?
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by AdrianBruce »

"Are they standard GEDCOM?"
Yes, I believe that they are - I go slightly bog-eyed looking at that area but the SOURCE_CITATION part of the GEDCOM standard includes an optional +1 <<NOTE_STRUCTURE>>, which I think is what you are referring to. Use of that would indeed avoid duplication but, as you say, is a little tricky to get to, nor is it particularly visible once gotten to and written to.

Incidentally though I'm a splitter, like most of us splitters there are plenty of sources that I don't split - e.g. FreeBMD gets a single source record in my file.

Incidentally 2 - I had a natural disinclination to split physical sources over multiple source-records at the beginning - but was then faced with recording post-1837 marriages for which I had a physical certificate, on one source-record per marriage, but post-1837 marriages for which I had used a microfilm, on one source-record per film, i.e. one source-record with multiple marriage events. That offended my tidy, analytical mind and since I'm used to abstraction, I decided each marriage event would be a "virtual source", recorded one source-record per marriage across the board.

With concepts like "virtual source", feel free to abbreviate "analytical"...
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by tatewise »

To answer your last question - YES they are standard GEDCOM.
And yes that is a way to avoid the duplication, but it does not seem to me much different to having a split Source record, and is a bit more awkward to set up and display in FH.
That technique is also supported by AS in Method 2 mode.

Yes, shared Note appears on the Notes tab, but it is split from its context and cannot be associated with an image.
Whereas the split Source record lumps together the transcript, image, justification notes, etc.

What is your take on Birth/Death Certificates?
Is each one a distinct document, or one page from a large register of certificates?
A splitter would not say divide a certificate down to columns to identify just an Occupation.

Such subtleties are probably beyond most newcomers.

Split and lumped Sources both have their role, but to repeat what has been said many times over the years, to record transcripts and images it is rather more straightforward with split Source records.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by davidf »

AdrianBruce wrote:"Are they standard GEDCOM?"
Yes, I believe that they are - I go slightly bog-eyed looking at that area but the SOURCE_CITATION part of the GEDCOM standard includes an optional +1 <<NOTE_STRUCTURE>>, which I think is what you are referring to. Use of that would indeed avoid duplication but, as you say, is a little tricky to get to, nor is it particularly visible once gotten to and written to.
Continuing to dig:
Shared Notes placed on citations:
  1. Add through the All Tab in the properties box. Find the source and right click on the ellipsis (...) to the left of the source name and "Add Note" > "Link to New/Existing Note Record". (The reference to a "Note Record" is the key to recognising a Shareable note that appears in the Notes Tab of the Record View.
  2. Show in diagram templates etc. with %INDI.BAPM.SOUR.NOTE>% etc.
The template is not quite what I expected as it seems to imply that the note hangs off the source - it does not; it is specific to the citation. Also [+1] does not seem to work as I had hoped, the note that is displayed is the first one for that citation and if you have multiple notes it does not seem possible in the All Tab to reorder them.

FH at the moment does not give an easier access, but the "functionality" already exists - see the Notes Tab on the Property Box. That functionality needs to also appear in the Note section of the Citation area to give easy access to these notes.

As a database purist* I like the idea of being able to annotate a citation and being able to share that annotation across citations. You can link a citation to an image, so why not a note?

* I am contemplating another reply where I cast myself as a pragmatist!

Whether this ability is useful enough to sufficient people (at the cost of possible complication for those who do not see the value) to put it on a wish list, I don't know.
Last edited by davidf on 08 Mar 2019 12:54, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by davidf »

tatewise wrote:What is your take on Birth/Death Certificates?
Is each one a distinct document, or one page from a large register of certificates?
A splitter would not say divide a certificate down to columns to identify just an Occupation.
AdrianBruce wrote:I had a natural disinclination to split physical sources over multiple source-records at the beginning - but was then faced with recording post-1837 marriages for which I had a physical certificate, on one source-record per marriage, but post-1837 marriages for which I had used a microfilm, on one source-record per film, i.e. one source-record with multiple marriage events. That offended my tidy, analytical mind and since I'm used to abstraction, I decided each marriage event would be a "virtual source", recorded one source-record per marriage across the board.
Both of these come back to what do we see is a source?

Pragmatically (Yes!) I tend to ask "where did I get this?" or "where to I go to to reverify this?" and the answer implies the "Source".

So for a marriage, I might answer "The (Marriage) Certificate" or "FreeBMD (Marriages)" - and those are the Source Titles that I tend to use in FH and the "Where in Source" field in the citation then gives any specific details needed to get to the actual "entry".

For certificates I have a computer folder of Certificates (Birth/Adoption/Marriage/Separation/Death) which I have organised in Type, Surname of the First Principal (i.e. Groom for Marriages etc.), Forename, date order - so "Where in" is fairly redundant as the Source name points me to that folder. The Sections in the Folder are "the FH Sources". For other's who may use my FT in the future the reference can be deduced from the names of the parties and the date.

For FreeBMD I enter The Registration District, Year/Quarter, Volume, Page in the "Where in" Field.

(I know there is an inconsistency here in that FreeBMD and FMP's "England & Wales Births 1837-2006" etc. are secondary collations of the same actual GRO indices - which in themselves were until recently secondary sources! Again this is an ingrained lazy habit from before I got my mind around some of these issues.)

For most events where I have a certificate I also have the GRO (=FreeBMD) reference. I will do a check on FreeBMD to ensure that there is not someone else of a similar name and a consequent risk of a possible misidentification. I will then enter this as a secondary citation (after any certificate).

Within FH I also use "Cross Reference" Sources. So for the occupation of a Groom's father, the Source will be "Cross Reference: Marriage Record", and the "Where in Source" will say "1983 Marriage of Son John". I know this is imperfect as it points to a fact not to a citation, but it is an old habit - which I will curse if I ever start using reports!
David
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by davidf »

ColeValleyGirl wrote:it's necessary to record the link to the source we eventually decided to use, but we also need to explain why we discarded a variety of other sources
For sources that we discard (only as potential for the FT at its present state), does anyone else put in a citation with a "NOT" in the "Where within Source" entry?

I have for instance ordered certificates and found they are the wrong ones. I do scan them and bring them into my FH with a NOT before the GRO reference in the "Where within Source" and a NOT in the Media Title.

I suspect users of Reports will cringe at such an idea!
David
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Re: Multiple evidence of event

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

I don't use reports... but I keep track of my research using 'Task' facts and record all the incorrect certificates that way until I do a write up of my final reasoning (in which I will mention the incorrect certificates). I don't cite them.
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