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From: "Mills" <>
Subject: RE: [APG] Clerk's copy -- original vs. derivative
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 14:59:30 -0500
In-Reply-To: <2db.5f63756.3162ffcc@aol.com>


Craig Kilby wrote:
>There are two categories of sources, either of which can be in error:
>a. Original Documents or Public Record Copies/Abstracts/Trancripts of
Original Documents
>b. Everything Else


Craig, we might should clarify a point in the above. Your conclusion seems
to go back to a posting of mine several days ago, when someone inquired
about "clerk's copies." There I wrote:

"OFFICIAL RECORD COPY:
A clerk's official copy, usually entered into a register; it is treated as
an original when the original does not exist or cannot be accessed."


Here, we are not talking about abstracts or transcripts made by Tom, Dick,
or Harry. Nor would we consider a modern clerk's "abstract" drawn from a
full record made 100 years ago to be an "original" record. The original
would be that full record made 100 years ago.


>Public records would, with exceptions (shades of
>gray) be considered original source material.

No, I would not make a blanket statement that all "public records ... be
considered original source material." Public records come in all shapes,
forms, and fashions. Those "shades of grey" definitely determine whether the
record is original or derivative.


> Primary and Secondary sources no longer mean anything.
>They are either Original, Derivative, Direct or Indirect.
>I'm not sure why or when this reasoning was abandoned, but sources are
either

Yes and no. SOURCES are either originals or derivatives. SOURCES are not
"direct or indirect."

"Direct or indirect" is used to describe the EVIDENCE that we draw from the
INFORMATION within those sources.

>Primary or secondary INFORMATION.
>A written record, recorded interview or photograph would be primary.

Again, the concept is confused here. It's not the record that is "primary".
A record is a SOURCE. It is the INFORMATION within the record or the source
that has to be dissected to determine whether each individual statement is
primary or secondary. Many, many records contain both primary and secondary
information. Even within a single sentence, the informant may be providing
both primary and secondary information. As an example, if I were a witness
in a court case and I said "My husband, Gary B. Mills," attended St.
Joseph's Academy in the ninth grade," my information would be both primary
(my firsthand knowledge of who my husband was) and secondary (hearsay
knowledge of where he went to school before I met him).


>Primary and secondary regards the quality of the information.

Primary and secondary describe the NATURE of the information. Primary
information can be of totally unreliable quality if the informant is lying.
Even hearsay could be of high quality if it is based on an accurate
transmittal of facts.

>Direct or Indirect
>a. Direct evidence is a statement of fact, regardless of source

Yes and no.
1. If we use the word "fact" here, we really should put it in quotes. More
precisely, what we would be referring to here would be a piece of
information or an assertion. That piece of information or that assertion may
or may not be an actual *fact.*

2. A piece of information is not EVIDENCE unless it is *relevant* to the
question we're applying it to. That's the first test of whether something is
evidence.

3. But yes: Once we conclude that a piece of information is relevant and
therefore evidence to help answer our research question, then it is *direct*
evidence if it directly states what we need to know.


>b. indirect evidence is a conclusion such as one would use to solve a
cross
word puzzle or a soduko puzzle--process of elimination or simple logic,
which must needs explanation.

Here, Craig, you're taking one step of the process and turning it into the
whole.

In one sense, all evidence is a "conclusion." It's what we conclude or think
that a piece of information means. DIRECT EVIDENCE does makes a direct,
flat-out statement that answers the research question, all by itself
(although it could answer it wrong). INDIRECT EVIDENCE is evidence that does
NOT make a flat out statement to answer our question. It has to be put
together with other pieces of information to arrive at an answer to that
question. But indirect evidence is the individual piece not the whole final
solution.

The rest of your analogy about solving a puzzle, or the process of
elimination, or simple logic--these all express the mental processes we go
through to reach that conclusion we call "proof."


>Direct evidence, like a birth certificate . . . would stand on it's on
two feet.

Yes and no. Direct evidence "would stand on its own two feet." But a birth
certificate is a source. That source provides us information. We analyze
each piece of that information to decide whether it can "stand on its own
two feet" as an answer to whatever our question is.


>Indirect evidence would have to be supported by other evidence. >

Yes.


To sum all this up:
Each time we find an "item of interest," we have three elements to appraise:

-----The nature of the SOURCE (physical aspects: original or derivative)

-----The nature of the INFORMATION (the content of that source: primary or
secondary)

-----The nature of the EVIDENCE (the relevance of the information: direct or
indirect )


>Any and all of the above can be erroneous and false. Nothing can be relied
upon. Nothing is ever proved.>

Yes and no :). Life has no guarantees. No case is ever closed. But we *can*
reach credible conclusions (i.e., "proof") by following the five steps of
the Genealogical Proof Standard:

1.
Conduct a reasonably exhaustive search for all information pertinent to the
issue in question. (The emphasis here is upon that word "exhaustive.")

2.
Collect and record a complete and accurate citation for each and every
source, taking care to rely only upon the best-quality sources.

3.
Analyze and correlate the collected information to assess its value as
evidence.

4.
Resolve any conflicts caused by evidence that disputes other evidence or
contradicts the proposed solution.

5.
Arrive at a soundly reasoned conclusion that we support with a credible,
written, proof argument.


Craig, Rondina pointed you to an excellent little manual, Christine Rose's
*Genealogical Proof Standard* (2005 edition). Beyond that, to provide you
with concrete examples of (a) the differences between the different types of
evidence and (b) how to evaluate the "shades of gray" that each of them
involve, I would also recommend the special *Evidence* issue of the *NGS
Quarterly* that was published in September 1999. (See you library or
www.ngsgenealogy.org or www.bcgcertification.org to order a copy.)

In addition to a more detailed discussion of all the above points, this
issue provides explicit examples of four types of proof arguments:

"Indentification through Signatures: Using Complex Direct Evidence"
Dr. Ronald A. Hill, CG (and now FASG)

"Resolving Conflicts in Direct Evidence"
Helen F. M. Leary, CG, CGL, FASG

"Discovering Identity through Indirect Evidence"
Marya Myers, CG

"Rebutting Direct Evidence with Indirect Evidence"
Margaret Amundson, CG

Elizabeth

------------------------------------------------------
Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG
*Evidence: Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian*
*QuickSheet: Citing Online Historical Resources, Evidence! Style*
*Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers,
Writers, Editors, Lecturers & Librarians*

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