Proof Statements Needed

LegacyUser

Betty Flamm said: When someone "creates" a relationship circa 1800s and earlier they should provide a Proof Statement before the relationship is confirmed. I have several lines that ancestry changes annually because people "think" they have the correct relationship. Some turn out to be quite a stretch, others are just plain careless. And in many cases there are similar names/birth dates in families and time periods.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Your last sentence shows why "proof" is often a difficult thing to provide. When I add a Relationship Event to a couple I add a reason statement stating why I think this matches the two individuals concerned. But often this is more "extremely likely" than having direct "proof" - especially if the marriage took place a couple of hundred years ago. In some cases it is very difficult to "prove" which of the two William Greengrass individuals (probably cousins), born in the same time period and in the same parish, married Elizabeth Chamberlain. So it is a case of adding one, if you are virtually certain she married "him", or not adding a specific ID / attaching the marriage event if there are strong doubts regarding identity.

Unfortunately, in Family Tree, those reason statements I have added are not immediately visible. Unlike with the other vitals, one still has to click on "Edit" (above the event details in the Relationship Events section) before any justification for attaching the details / sources can be seen.

Mistakes will always be made, even by fairly experienced users, so we need to "Follow" as many IDs as we can, in order that errors made by others can be quickly spotted and corrected.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: "Unfortunately, in Family Tree, those reason statements I have added are not immediately visible."
Where it's been complicated - a sheet of A4, for instance - I'll create a Memory or Note or something like that - seems to help visibility and permanence.

LegacyUser

Betty Flamm said: Paul & Adrian - It sounds like you do things correctly. I don't consider Proof Statements a statement of factual correctness, more like a statement that includes the resources I've looked at for the best information to make a connection, or break a connection. Unfortunately too many are too quick to make a connection with out support (especially back in the day when everyone was John Wesley Smith ;-), and they don't even make a comment as to why they even remotely think the connection is correct. I think at some level Family Search could add a stopgap when adding family members back in the 1600/1700/1800s that if no source is provided the person should be identified as "speculative". I do add information in the Discussions or Notes sections but it seems no one reads them or some have even been deleted entirely.