Re: Genealogy For The Beginner

In article <3psdr3tni8ulkd0b7bo06bufjvblm8uslh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Bob LeChevalier  <lojbab@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Haines Brown <brownh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>Bob has touched upon some classic philosophical issues. Perhaps by
>>exploring them a bit we can arrive at a better grasp of the significance
>>of data and their interpretation.
>>
>>The first thing that needs to be done is to be clear about the
>>difference between data and facts.
>>...
>
>I find nothing in your summary objectionable.  But you omitted one
>concept I don't fully understand myself in its technical aspects, but
>still use metaphorically when thinking about data and facts.  
>
>That concept is the one of "fuzzy" truth values (and thereby fuzzy
>logic).  Very seldom can we assign perfect truth or perfect falsehood
>to an alleged fact, and sometimes we aren't all that sure what
>standard of truth we want to apply to a putative fact.  
>
>Hugh has three possible ancestors to his earliest "proven" ancestor.
>He could, by whatever means he chose, assign a fuzzy truth value to
>each of them, thereby entertaining all three possibilities at once.
>If he ever gets further information, the truth values he assigns might
>change.

  Precisely.  

  Or, as I mentioned more briefly elsewhere, I'd like to have some
software sup****t for working with the method of multiple hypotheses.

  To back up a second, I view all of the genealogy and family history
I do as a matter of hypothesis building and testing.  (My day job
is in science, surprise).  My great grandmother Anna, I met, for
instance.  Of course I only know that she's my great grandmother
because I was told so, even if by people (her daughter, for instance)
who should know.  So maybe that's a pretty strong hypothesis.  But,
her parents, ... well, that's weaker if not entirely vacant.  One of 
my great grandfathers, I have relatively good hypotheses about, but
his parents are where I have a dozen candidates at the moment.  Very
low confidence w.r.t. any of them.  Still, fair confidence that it's
one of the group.  

  Your ideas for display methods sound good (and like something
I've thought about myself).  

  One addition I'd make is that the boxes (mother's father's mother's
mother) are themselves certain -- there certainly was such a person.
Which person it is, not so obvious.  But the slot itself is definite
even if we only have uncertain candidates with which to occupy it.
A different drawback to softwares is that they don't seem to permit
us to attach multiple candidates to the box.  We may be quite certain
that they are only candidates for that particular box, while still
being quite uncertain as to which person is the proper occupant.  

-- 
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/
Science faqs and amateur
activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too
much 
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than
they 
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New
Sciences