Evidence Analysis Issues

Death certificate

Not really an issue just some food for thought. The death certificate is from Auschwitz. It contains a wealth of information, address in The Netherlands, father and mother, and cause of death (heart attack).

The first item to consider is the certificate number of 21427 for the year 1942. The implication is that by August the camp has had 21000 deaths that were recorded. As 17 August is the 229th day of the year, that implies a death rate of over 900 per day.

Personal Knowledge for Names and Birthdays - Primary vs. Secondary

Hi, I'm curious about how I should classify my personal knowledge of another person's full name, maiden name, and birthday. Let's say my mother, for example. I obviously was not present at her birth, but I have celebrated her birthday with her every year that I can recall. Does that give me primary knowledge of the day, but not the year? Or would my knowledge be considered entirely secondary information?

Heirloom photograph album from mid 19th century

There's a first for everything...

In my own 12+ years of dedicated genealogical research, the inadvertent discovery of a completely unknown photograph album filled with daguerreotypes, tintypes and carte de vistas of my very own ancestors stands alone as one of the most surreal happenings I can recall.  This just happened in fact--just a few weeks ago.

Census and Death Record - Analysis and Correlation of both Records

I have been trying to formulate a "discussion" in the Research Notes of one of my ancestor's profiles @ Wikitree. This is the base of it.

Unfortunately, a number of the 1841 Scotland census records are missing or did not survive, and Ceres is one of those. This is most unfortunate, as Ceres was most likely the parish where Isabell was living that year. No other 1841 census record that fits her profile has been located.

Following up on "When and how to employ transcriptions and extracts?"

Dear Editor;

I just re-read one of the posts I made on Wed, 03/13/2019 - 12:58, entitled "When and how to employ transcriptions and extracts?" In your response of Wed, 03/13/2019 - 16:08, you noted that you intended to write a blog article and a "QuickTips" as a result of the questions posed. If you did have the opportunity to write more on the subject, could you provide a link to the relevant articles? The content could well have a bearing on a current segment of my genealogical research.

Died versus murdered

When is it appropriate to use murdered instead of died? I'm looking at a Holocaust family. Did they just die in Sobibor or Auschwitz or is a death there automatically murder? From a huge family of 16 kids, who had lots of kids themselves, it's hard to document death after death. Somehow i want some of the emotion i'm feeling doing this work to come out in simple words. Murdered seems a better word to use.

Derivative or original source

From 1814 to 2003, Danish parish registers were kept in duplicate, but the actual procedure was not the same from time to time and place to place. Sometimes, the minister and the sacristan met regularly and then the sacristan copied the entries from the minister's book into the sacristan's book. Other times, both the minister and the sacristan kept their books simultaneously and compared them regularly and made corrections if needed. I would say that by the first procedure, the sacristan's book is a derivative record, but by the second procedure, the sacristan's book is an original record.