Re: Validation of genealogy data

Mikkel Eriksen wrote:
> A big thing is to differentiate between "errors" and "warnings".
> 
> Most things should be warnings, only literally impossible things
> should be errors. Thus, a parent having a child at age 10 should be a
> warning (even younger parents have been recorded after all), but a
> parent being younger than their child, that should be an error.
> 
> Also, such age checks should only matter for biological children, I've
> gotten warnings from software because a step mother was "too old" to
> have a child at that age (no matter that she didn't actually have that
> child).

I would be much looser than that, even to the point that it is nearly impossible 
to have importing errors.

And here's one of the main ideas from my own genealogy database project.

A good database needs to be able to store and organize contradictory 
information, such as a parent being younger than their child, rather than 
throwing up its hands and saying it is an error.

As you probably know, in real life there can be many sources for related 
subjects, and it is often the case that they may contradict each other.  We need 
to be able to record all sources and what they say, even if they don't agree.

A related main idea of my own project is:

Conceive that the database is not recording actual facts, but rather assertions 
or statements.  We are never completely sure that something is true or false, 
but rather that just there is agreement or not.  So the database is not saying 
"this is true", but rather it says "X says Y and W says V and so we (the 
database) say "M is N", where some of those letters may be the same.

-- Darren Duncan