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Subject: Re: [TMG] Proof of Parentage
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 10:19:47 EDT


My standard answer to your question about proving parentage (and many other
things) goes like this. Genealogy is 10% fact and 90% Inference. If you find
children in a household, of the right age, you ASSUME these are children of
the couple, barring any contradictory evidence, of course. If you find a
William in a household, age 14, in 1850 and a William, age 24, married,
living next door to the original household in 1860 you ASSUME it is the same
William. If you find Nicodemus Hezekiah Jones, age 48 in 1850, you have to
ASSUME that the Nicodemus Hezekiah Jones, age 58, in 1860 is the same person.
Note the process of inference and logic going on. You add up probabilities
and make inferences. For example if you had found John Jones, age 48 in 1850
and another John Jones, age 57 in 1860, barring other evidence, ie a wife of
the right name and age, you probably wouldn't be so quick to make the
assumption for such a common name. It is a rare treat, indeed, to find a
record, such as a will that actually names people as children and even then
there is first a process of definition and then a process of logic and
inference going on. How do you know that the John named in the will as a
child of old Henry is the same John in some other record. You usually don't,
of course. You must go through the process of logic and inference, add up all
the probabilities and make assumptions. Returning to children, remember that
in former times it was quite common for a brother to take in the children of
a brother or other relative and raise them as his own. Sometimes the children
even took on the surname of the foster parent. You have no way to determine
which kid is which barring records which almost never exist. I always make a
caveat about such in passing on information. I say I try to do the best job I
can with logic and inference, evaluating probabilities etc. One is always
skirting a rather fine line between such studious evaluation and judgements
which allows one to build a family tree and speculation which throws the
results of everything into question. I have a one family data base of about
4000 folks. If I were forced to have absolutely irrefutable documental proof
of every relationship, that data base probably would be down in the hundreds,
maybe less, with huge gaps between parts. Relationships are seldom provable,
so do the best you can with logic and inference-Dale Mueller

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