Citation Assessments

  • Skill Level: Advanced and Intermediate
  • FH versions: V4, V5, V6, and V7
  • In Topics: Sources and Citations 

A Citation Assessment is your assessment of the credibility of the source information that led you to a particular conclusion). Remember that the assessment is for the piece of information in the source that led to the citation, rather than the source document as a whole.

Version 6 and below

Family Historian version 6 and below supports Citation Assessment based on the Gedcom standard:

  • Primary evidence:  Such as a Birth Certificate or most information in a Census. For example, a census enumerator will have recorded contemporary details such as name and address of the householder. However, details such as Birth, Place and Age may be less credible and warrant a lower assessment.
  • Secondary evidence: Such as Birth, Place and Age in a Census or on a Death Certificate, that are not contemporary with the birth, as they were recorded some time after the event, and/or by somebody who did not have first-hand knowledge.
  • Questionable: Such as a GEDCOM from another user who may be guilty of wishful thinking, when you have not had the chance to check their data. (Once you’ve checked it, you may remove the citation to their GEDCOM and replace it with citations to better sources. Or you may conclude they were wrong, and remove the citation altogether.)
  • Unreliable: Such as any family legend or hearsay that is very hard to verify.

Version 7

In version 7, you can continue to base your Citation Assessments on the Gedcom standard, but you can also specify a combination of values accessible via <more options> in the Citation Assessment dropdown:

Citation Assessment more options

These are described at Citation Assessment Dialog Help and partially reflect the evidence analysis process described by Elizabeth Shown Mills.

Last update: 14 Dec 2020