Source ratings

This might turn out to be a road that wasn't worth turning onto, but within the Genealogy Project, each fact source citation is rated.  For simplicity, I use the four-star rating system built into FTM 2014.  This rating system is clearly not perfect, but as a quick evaluation tool of the reliability of certain facts, it serves it's purpose.  What follows is a quick discussion of the different components, and how they are generally evaluated within the Genealogy Project.

1.  Original vs. Derivative:  Throughout the Genealogy Project, I opt for the simplest interpretation of this evaluation, i.e., the source is either the original record or not.  That is, by far, the easiest way to evaluate this.  Problematically, one could consider different records to be either original or derivative depending on what event you are referring to.  For example, a birth record could be an original source for the birth of the person that it records, but you could consider it a derivative source if it is a citation for the mother's birth date.  Similarly, a census record might be an original source for some information (location at a specific time), but a derivative source for almost everything else.  The main problem with this sort of hair splitting is that it can lead you to under or over reliance on one record to the detriment of other records, and the rationale for choosing one versus the other would need to be documented in almost every instance.

2.  Clear vs. Marginal:  This is a bit more challenging, especially given that there's another category for "Direct/Indirect".  Within the Genealogy Project, this is primarily used to document whether the source document is clear (not smudged, handwriting is clear, etc.).  Marginal would indicate that there was some difficulty in determining exactly what the date/name/place was supposed to be, given that the source documentation was faint, or difficult to read.  I've read notes elsewhere that this should be applied to the "original source" documentation, but this is extremely difficult to apply in practice, as a large number of sources are derivative (birth record indexes, marriage indexes, etc.)

3.  Primary vs. Secondary:  The idea here is whether the person providing the information had direct knowledge of the fact.  The challenge here becomes much greater - who provided the information on census records?  The person compiling a family history probably had direct knowledge of some facts, but not all.  Some broad guidelines have been implemented at the Genealogy Project to assist in the evaluation - census records are considered to be primary, regardless of the fact; family histories are considered to be secondary.  Indexes are considered to be secondary, original birth, marriage, and death records are considered to be primary.

4.  Direct vs. Indirect:  Much easier to interpret.  Does the source directly state the fact?  Or is it implied?  At least one of the challenges comes back to gender - if the source says "She died in 1823", I've treated that as an indirect citation - although it is better than the typical assumption based on name, and there's nothing in the overall rating to differentiate between the two citations in that regard.  Still, within the Genealogy Project, the indirect reference to a person as male or female has been rated as such.

While this provides a quick evaluation of any given source, there are lots of other factors which could be considered as well - proximity to a given event, for example, or the level of consistency within a particular source.  Nonetheless, this is what I'm using for the time being.