Monday, June 14, 2010

Genealogist or Gossip

If they don't depend on true evidence, scientists [including genealogists] are no better than gossips.

Penelope Fitzgerald

In the example presented in “Evidence Management Explained” we saw that the big payoff of using evidence management occurs when a conclusion is drawn. Drawing from the example of Angeline née Clements Goldsmith again, suppose a week or more passed between discovering and entering each piece of evidence. As each piece of evidence about her birth is entered, we might well revisit our conclusion about her birth date. Each time we click to edit the birth date, the evidence manager displays a conclusion entry window.

For convenience I have reproduced the conclusion entry window from the example. I have incorporated most of your feedback. If I didn’t get yours, remember that this example is only conceptual.

Summary Name Asser-tion Evidence Notes Created Date Link Analysis
Automatically Selected Evidence
Manually Selected Evidence
Conclusion for Birth date: 5 February 1848


How do the vendors do with conclusion entry? Here is what I found:

Conclusion entry facilitates intelligent conclusions by design. No No No
Pertinent assertions from all relevant evidence summaries are gathered together and displayed in one place. Yes-ish Yes Yes (but not grouped together) if a person page is considered a conclusionary person, but no if the person page is an evidentiary person
To encourage critical thinking, notes can be entered for each piece of evidence and for the conclusion. Yes-ish Yes-ish Yes-ish
Evidence is automatically selected for analysis based upon the conclusion type. For a birth date conclusion, evidence about age and birth date are automatically displayed. No Yes Yes (but not grouped together) if a person page is considered a conclusionary person, but no if the person page is an evidentiary person
The user can manually select other evidence. No No All evidence is displayed in all cases.
Attributes are displayed for each piece of evidence and its source. For the source, these might include: original or derivative, derivative type, recording date, and recorder. For the evidence, these might include: informant, primary or secondary, direct or indirect, and supportive or contradictory. No No No


I realize these tables are barely better than nothing. I need to display some screen shots from each of these products to illustrating what I’m talking about. I had planned to start those today, but articles for Wednesday and Friday caused a digression and my weekend is over. Stay tuned…

And just so you (the vendors) know, I’m always open to answer questions you may have regarding evidence management… no extra charge.

1 comment:

  1. I wonder who Penelope Fitzgerald is and why her opinion is important.