Re: Validation of genealogy data

On 8/5/2011 2:13 PM, Darren Duncan wrote:
> 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

Absolutely, one of my most frustrating Genealogical mis-adventures was 
add some data from source A then later deleting it and adding different 
data from source B, etc from 3-4 sources, until I finally figured out 
that one of the early sources was flat wrong and many people had used 
and referenced that source. So in my notes I also documented all the BAD 
sources and tree information to document the fiasco and to avoid changes 
in the future.

-Steve