GenWeekly, Vol. VI, No. 47
It's Genealogy. It's Weekly. It's GenWeekly.
November 20, 2009
Elisabeth Lindsay, Editor
All articles are copyright (c) 2009 Genealogy Today, LLC.
This Week's Articles
The original article(s) in this section are available only to subscribers. You can learn about our $9.95 annual subscription at http://www.genweekly.com/subscribe.html
by Rita Marshall. Newly declassified information suggests the challenges of evaluating evidence.
Recent News
- Halloween it's not, but Mummies are in the news, modern imaging techniques reveal heart condition among ancient mummies.
- What's in YOUR Closet? -- incidental writings throughout life can take many forms and be quite meaningful.
The Genealogy Guide
In the interest of helping readers gain better insight into genealogical terms, Genealogy Today has created a Genealogy Guide. Each week, GenWeekly features a new term from the continually expanding Genealogy Guide.
A standard is a rule or a principal used as a basis for judgement or evaluation. Standards are often set a guideline for performance or acceptability. The Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS), established by the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG), is a standard established for "proving" genealogical conclusions, especially when the evidence is not clear-cut or there are conflicts of information--or when you are dealing with family legend or lore. The standard consists of five elements and seventy-four standards. According to the BCG, "each conclusion about an ancestor must have sufficient credibility to be accepted as "proved." Acceptable conclusions, therefore, meet the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS)."
Applying the Genealogical Proof Standard can help researchers conduct credible research that can stand on its own and hold up to the scrutiny of others. Information that meets the standard does not ensure complete accuracy, but does afford a well-reasoned conclusion based on the best available information available.
Archive Articles
For additional reading on the topics covered in this week's newsletter, you may wish to read the following articles from the GenWeekly archive:
Family Stories, Lore, and Legends: Trying to Sort Out the Facts
The Legend of Virginia Dare
And he knew Daniel Boone…
<< Home