* Source Assessment

[philbar]

[confused]

Hi Listers,

what are the views regarding setting the assessment for sources? is a Gro certificate Primary or Secondary? and what about Parish registers? I'm a little confused and would welcome advice on what is the correct practice or is it just personal preference?

ID:659

[Jane]

To be honest, I tend not to use it, other than for things I am fairly sure are very iffy, you know internet data on Rootsweb or where I want to make sure I remember to get further evidence.

As I favour the source for every page routine, I have different sources for Census index as opposed to scanned Census pages. I don't mark every citation as you need to do to use Source Assessment, I tend to note in the source if there could be a problem.

I suspect like the number of sources you have source assessment is as you say a matter of personal preference, but I stand to be corrected.

[pwe]

Phil,
I mark a BMD certificate or census page source as primary. If the info is from someone else (say the source is my aunt) I mark it secondary and if it from the IGI or is a BMD index where I do not have the certificate, then I mark it questionable.
Peter E

[g_mcallister]

I am happy to regard a GRO certificate as a primary source, though purists will argue that as it is a copy of the register entry then it is not a primary source. Likewise I regard parish registers as primary sources even where I have viewed them on microfilm (the usual). However an index of parish register entries would be a secondary source to me.

[philbar]

Thanks for the replies, I had thought of giving GRO cert's a primary status but wasn't sure about Parish Registers. If we treat those as Primary then I assume that BT's are secondary as, I understand that, these were often written from memory.

[g_mcallister]

My understanding is that the BTs were  a copy of the register prepared annually by the churchwardnes or witnessed by them (We have found an ancestor's signature on one from early 18C as he was a churchwarden at the time.). However the original register itself may not have been entered up at the time of the event. It was often written up some time later and that would be from memory. I have used BTs where the original register has been lost or become illegible. I am not too pedantic about whether a BT is primary or secondary. I accept that generally it is the best I will get and that I will not be able to improve further on the information.