Family Historian User Group

Probably a simple answer. If you find someone who maybe the spouse you are looking for, how do you record it in FH as a poosible match not proven? do you just add the note till you get a certificate?

Rob

ID:2558

That's the problem with all genealogy programs in that they mainly only record facts, not assertions. The only thing you can record as not proven is the quality of the source identifing the fact for an event. You can't record the quality of the event.

So in your case you can label the source that made you think that spouse is a match as 'unreliable'. At the very least you can then find such sources in a query to identify the weak points in your tree. It's still best to make a note against the individuals involved that the marriage is probably not correct and what made you think it was. When you find out for definite, don't delete the original notes, but use them as a reminder for the future so that others who might have made the same mistake learn from yours.

Nearly all genealogical programs are designed to be used by 'novice' family historians and they tend to allow entry of whats called 'conclusional data', ie. data not necessarily supported by evidence. However in carrying out genealogical research the researcher will come across data which are sometimes pure guess work, sometimes contradictory, sometimes only guides. All these facts are recorded and are used to provide evidence that a particular event occured. A researcher will then make a deduction based on this, noting their thought processes that brought them to this conclusion. Even if facts are later disproven or were negative, they should still be kept so that the same mistake is not made in the future and so that others can see that all data was taken into account to build the conclusion.

Hope that wasn't too waffly or obtuse. Quite a long complicated reply for a simple answer!

HTH