* What if I am the Source?

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Tangolima
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What if I am the Source?

Post by Tangolima »

This may have been covered previously but I have searched and been unsuccessful.

In previous software I have created various sources entitled 'Personal Recollections of ...' with the name of the individual who gave me the information, where this could also be my name from my knowledge. I can use the Oral Testimony in FH7 for others but I'm not sure what best practice is if I am the source.

Does anyone have any helpful tips/views?

Thanks in anticipation

Tony
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AdrianBruce
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by AdrianBruce »

I only use generic sources and my own personal recollection source-record has just me as the Author and a Title of Personal Knowledge. That relies on the 2 items being "printed" together.

When I just tried the Oral Testimony template, it prefixes everything in Bibliography and Footnotes with "Oral Testimony" (well, it would) which looks daft, as if I'm talking to myself. (Yeah, and??? ;) ) That's slightly annoying but I've not sufficent templated source experience to know if the solution to getting rid of that phrase is in the template or reverting to a generic source...
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by tatewise »

Consider it from the perspective of somebody else viewing your family tree.
They need to be able to use each Source Citation to ratify the facts claimed.
If you are the source then it is your Oral Testimony, but in the Source don't fill in the {Hearer}.
The templates then produce: Oral testimony of Tangolima, 21 Jan 2022, FHUG that is fine from other people's perspective.
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

tatewise wrote: 21 Jan 2022 14:29 The templates then produce: Oral testimony of Tangolima, 21 Jan 2022, FHUG that is fine from other people's perspective.
I disagree. Oral means spoken, which is untrue in this scenario, unless Tony is in the habit of talking to himself.

If there is only going to be a single such source ('Everything Helen Knows') I'd create a one-off (Method2/lumper) generic source: 'Personal Knowledge of Helen'. If there are going to be multiple such sources ('What Helen Knows about Her Oldest Sister', 'What Helen Knows about Her Father', etc.) I'd clone the Oral Testimony Template and modify it to be a Personal Knowledge Template and modify it to fit.

Personal Knowledge is impossible for anyone else to assess, so it needs to be clearly delineated from Oral testimony (which might be capable of being assessed if for example there's a recording).

If we're being pernickety, you should be clear in your own mind whether something is 'Personal Knowledge' because (for example) you were there at a particular event or 'hearsay' (where you were told something) when an Oral Testimony source is more appropriate.
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davidf
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by davidf »

But if we publish anything isn't it in danger just being personal assertions unless backed by something?

That something may be:
  • An authoritative source which it is reasonably generally thought to be reliable
  • Logic (A is the sibling of B, if A & B share parents)
  • Some sort of reported testing (or in other fields, experimentation)
  • Combination of any of the above!
Does referencing yourself (in a sole authored work) actually add anything?
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ColeValleyGirl
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

davidf wrote: 21 Jan 2022 14:53 Does referencing yourself (in a sole authored work) actually add anything?
Yes. It helps readers assess the likely accuracy of a statement.

Suppose you were present at the birth of your (theoretical) child. Recording a source of 'Personal Knowledge' for the birth (with a source note to say you were present at the birth) tells a reader that they can probably 'trust' the fact even if there's no other source.

On the other hand, recording a source of 'Personal Knowledge' for the following note suggests it should be taken with a pinch of salt unless there are other supporting sources. (This example is cited as Personal Knowledge in the tree of the cousin who shared the 'information' with me.)

"Henry ROBERTS b.1866… he was a rogue a thief a villain and he liked his drink, he would regularly mount his pushbike and cycle from Cefn to North Wales to visit his family, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves, the journey wouldn’t be a continuous one he would work on farms on the way up, he would sleep rough, getting a small payment and food off the farmers. (he was very good at ‘dry stone walling’) it was on one of these trips in 1926 he was found dead in a barn near North Wales, he had been there for about three days before the farmer found him. My grandfather and two of his brothers went up to identify the body, and bury him, in Llangybi where his mother was born”.

For the record, he didn't die in a barn but in hospital in Caernarfon. Nor was he buried in Llangybi, but in Llanbeblig Public Cemetery in Caernarfon.
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by tatewise »

Would you go along with the idea of an Oral Testimony if Tony made a recording of what he knows and saved that as a Media file attached to the Source for others to reference?
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davidf
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by davidf »

ColeValleyGirl wrote: 21 Jan 2022 15:07 ...
Suppose you were present at the birth of your (theoretical) child. Recording a source of 'Personal Knowledge' for the birth (with a source note to say you were present at the birth) tells a reader that they can probably 'trust' the fact even if there's no other source.
...
Possibly I was being excessively provocative but there is a (subtle) qualitative difference between a bland "Personal Recollection" and a note saying you were "present at the birth".

How you distinguish between the two I am not entirely sure.

I know my father died on Christmas day 2005 because I had been in the hospice room a few minutes before and when I returned he had died. Curiously the registrar said I should be recorded as "present at the death" but seemed a bit vague as to how far away I could be before that ceased to be true.

Of course the source I cite for my father's death is his death certificate - but that does cite me as the informant "present at the death". Technically I suspect that the medical certificate that I presented is the source of the authority for the death certificate being issued and the source for the details of time, date, place and cause.
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by davidf »

tatewise wrote: 21 Jan 2022 15:29 Would you go along with the idea of an Oral Testimony if Tony made a recording of what he knows and saved that as a Media file attached to the Source for others to reference?
But is that anything more than "Format Shifting"?
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

tatewise wrote: 21 Jan 2022 15:29 Would you go along with the idea of an Oral Testimony if Tony made a recording of what he knows and saved that as a Media file attached to the Source for others to reference?
What value would that add? Other than shoe-horning it into the Oral Testimony bucket?
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by AdrianBruce »

ColeValleyGirl wrote: 21 Jan 2022 14:48... Personal Knowledge is impossible for anyone else to assess, so it needs to be clearly delineated from Oral testimony (which might be capable of being assessed if for example there's a recording). ...
Isn't the assessment of oral testimony potentially twofold?
(1) Did the person in question actually say what it's claimed that they did?
(2) Did they speak "the truth" when they did say it?

Oral testimony just might be assessable under (1) if, as Helen suggests, there's a recording - or a witness - whereas Personal Knowledge can't be assessed under (1) - but both can be assessed under (2). I'm just being pedantic in wanting to distinguish the two types of assessment.
ColeValleyGirl wrote: 21 Jan 2022 14:48... If we're being pernickety, you should be clear in your own mind whether something is 'Personal Knowledge' because (for example) you were there at a particular event or 'hearsay' (where you were told something) when an Oral Testimony source is more appropriate.
Agreed. For a long time, I had 3 major Personal Knowledge sources - one each for myself and my two parents. Eventually I decided that, short of a Vulcan Mind Meld, I didn't actually know what their Personal Knowledge was - but I had had multiple conversations with them so I re-described their two Personal Knowledge sources as Oral Testimony.

I can't get incredibly excited by the difference between Personal Knowledge and Oral Testimony but I think it is there and it makes everything that little bit clearer if we use Oral Testimony for conversations (in fact, "Conversation" is what I call it - "OT" seems a bit OTT, somehow). And equally I do feel that describing my own personal knowledge as that, rather than Oral Testimony, makes the description flow better.
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

davidf wrote: 21 Jan 2022 15:31
Possibly I was being excessively provocative but there is a (subtle) qualitative difference between a bland "Personal Recollection" and a note saying you were "present at the birth".

How you distinguish between the two I am not entirely sure.
The note is important, because it enables a reader to assess how likely the source is to be accurate. If there's no credible note, I would be much more sceptical of a 'Personal Knowledge' source.
Of course the source I cite for my father's death is his death certificate.
Agreed, but if you had recorded something else about the death in the Fact Note, you might want to include the Personal Knowledge source as well.
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by davidf »

ColeValleyGirl wrote: 21 Jan 2022 15:56 Agreed, but if you had recorded something else about the death in the Fact Note, you might want to include the Personal Knowledge source as well.
Agreed but that then opens up (I suspect again) the question as to whether citations and sources should be targetted at "FH facts" as a whole or at specific elements of the fact (Date, Place, Cause, Note) etc.!
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Agreed but that then opens up (I suspect again) the question as to whether citations and sources should be targeted at "FH facts" as a whole or at specific elements of the fact (Date, Place, Cause, Note) etc.!
Even if we haven't achieved nirvana yet, we can still make the most of the facilities we have...
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by ADC65 »

This seems to have gone off on a very ideological discussion of the finer points of sources and citations in response to a query from a first-time poster to FHUG asking for a bit of simple advice.

For what it is worth, I do something similar to Adrian's first response to the question. I set up a Generic Source for each person who has given me information. In the Publication Info for that Source, I add my relationship to that person, e.g., First Cousin, Aunt, Friend, etc. I name these Sources "People - SURNAME, FIRSTNAME", e.g., "People - COOK, Adrian". The P.I. for myself is "Author".

For each citation of the source I will then note the circumstances and reliability of the information.

Your mileage may vary, as they say, but it works for me and displays well in reports, etc.
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by KFN »

Since the beginning of my foray into genealogy in the early 1980’s I’ve use “interview by {interviewer} of {interviewee}” as my source. I learned this from a Norwegian Researcher who did a lot of interviews of locals for books he wrote about each of the kommune he chronicled. Some of the information was personal or family history that would never have been collected in any official documents.

Today, if I had any notes, voice recordings or video, these would be included in my archive and I suppose could be on a family website if important.

This concept is similar to my source, “letter from {writer} to {recipient}”
Last edited by KFN on 22 Jan 2022 16:00, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by tatewise »

Adrian: Well said. I suspect it has frightened Tony away, which is why I ducked out early.
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

satyricon wrote: 22 Jan 2022 15:10 This seems to have gone off on a very ideological discussion of the finer points of sources and citations in response to a query from a first-time poster to FHUG asking for a bit of simple advice.
Except the simple advice isn't that simple ... we have two alternative solutions on offer, and a discussion about the characteristics of the two approaches.
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by davidf »

ColeValleyGirl wrote: 22 Jan 2022 16:24
satyricon wrote: 22 Jan 2022 15:10 This seems to have gone off on a very ideological discussion of the finer points of sources and citations in response to a query from a first-time poster to FHUG asking for a bit of simple advice.
Except the simple advice isn't that simple ... we have two alternative solutions on offer, and a discussion about the characteristics of the two approaches.
I would agree - and would add that asking "what best practice is" is never a request for "simple advice"?
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Tangolima
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by Tangolima »

I didn’t realise that I was opening such a detailed discussion, but certainly not frightened way.

Thanks so much for all your input.

I went with Helen and cloned Oral Testament to create a custom Personal Recollections source, but made some errors and ended up deleting the definitions but was left with 2 sources being added to the project Source list.

I now need to remove these but cannot see how to! Any suggestions?

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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

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Tangolima
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by Tangolima »

ColeValleyGirl wrote: 22 Jan 2022 21:02 Delete One or Many Records should help.
Thanks for this Helen.
It was useful to know about this but I still couldn't find the solution.

The problem I have is:
In Tools > Source Template Definitions I cloned Oral Testimony to create Personal Recollections and Added to Project.
Noticing errors I edited it and ended up creating Personal Recollections1, which I also Added to Project.
Deciding to start again (with all my new-found knowledge!) I deleted the Definitions, believing that all trace would be gone but they are still showing in my Source selection list (see attached).
2022-01-23_113014 Source List.pdf
(57.51 KiB) Downloaded 30 times
Any suggestions re deleting these 2 items?

Thank you
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

If you do View > Other Record Lists > Source templates you should see them and be other to delete them

Quick background: Source Template Definitions are held outside the project; when you add them to a project, a Source Template record is created which is not affected by deleting the definition.

Adding and Customising Source Templates in Version 7 might make this clearer.
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by Tangolima »

ColeValleyGirl wrote: 23 Jan 2022 12:12 If you do View > Other Record Lists > Source templates you should see them and be other to delete them

Quick background: Source Template Definitions are held outside the project; when you add them to a project, a Source Template record is created which is not affected by deleting the definition.

Adding and Customising Source Templates in Version 7 might make this clearer.
Thanks Helen - sometimes the obvious is in front of you!

I’ll say hello to Trittiford Park when I next drive past (usually 1/2 times per month).
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Re: What if I am the Source?

Post by ColeValleyGirl »

Tangolima wrote: 24 Jan 2022 08:10 I’ll say hello to Trittiford Park when I next drive past (usually 1/2 times per month).
:D
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