Re: Genealogical evidence and data model

In message of 20 Jan, Ian Goddard <goddai01@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> singhals wrote:
> > But, I'd venture to suggest that out of any 100 
> > genealogists at least 51% _still_ want a program to record their 
> > conclusions so they can print it out.  
> 
> If that wish were properly implemented things wouldn't be so bad.  But 
> when I get back to the mid C18th the only conclusion for quite a number 
> of lines is "A or B" or even "A or B or C".
> 
> S/W which assumes that pedigrees can always be resolved unambiguously 
> won't handle this situation.  I can't believe that the situation is 
> uncommon so how do users of such S/W cope?  Do they simply stop entering

> their results when they get back to an ambiguity?  Do they allow their 
> S/W to dictate to them that they should choose what might at the time 
> appear to be the most likely ancestor and discard the rest?  Do they 
> generate parallel universes of databases to handle all the alternative 
> combinations?

I detect here, though I could be wrong, a thesis that it is possible to
prove facts by logic.  Computers are products of logic.  So computers
can easily prove genealogical facts.

Regrettably this is not logic.  Logic is not about truth claims, it is
about the rules of truth claim and thus its subject is all statements
whether true or false.

If you want to establish facts you have got to give reasons and state
that these, to you, imply certain conclusions.  Others can then see what
you are on about and make decisions on whether they agree or not.  That
is the fun of human discourse.

For my money, then, if you have some vague or inconclusive data, you
should set it out and your comments in Notes to the people concerned.
If you think that your arguments give a heavy balance of probabilities
of identifying a person, then say that and, even, put that person in
your database with the presumed connections.

This sort of problem gets all the more acute if you go into dealing with
medieval people where the surviving do***ents are very few and can be
difficult to interpret.  But this does not mean that it is impossible to
establish a genealogy.  Though it should mean that medieval genealogy is
a far better exercise of reasoning and discussion than any other,
because there are so many people who share an interest in the small
numbers of people whose records have survived.   Of course, like so many
areas of human debate, sometimes tempers can and do get a little frayed!

-- 
Tim Powys-Lybbe                                          tim@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/