To protect the anonymity of the author, I’ve changed a few key details of three sentences I came across in a family history.

“The first BlahBlah” in America came as a stowaway on a ship about 1745. The truth of this story is evidenced by its appearance in several family histories although there is no direct proof of the ancestor’s arrival in this fashion. Certainly if it were not true it would not have been repeated so many times.”

So the more something is said the more true it becomes. The sad reality is that the more something is said the more it tends to be believed.

Repetition does not accuracy make. The fact that the story has been repeated simply means that it has been repeated. The story could have initially appeared in one book and simply been repeated by subsequent authors. The later renditions of the story are all dependent upon the first reference being true. The statement was not obtained from independent sources. It may be easier to see this concept with an example a little more recent than 1745.

My grandmother’s death certificate, obituary, and marriage license all give the same location of her birth. While they are different records, they have the same original source: my grandmother. She provided the information for her marriage license and the informants for the other records used information provided to those informants by her. The statements about her birth on those records are all dependent on what Grandma said. They are not really independent of each other. Just because they agree does not mean they are automatically correct. It just means that they all agreed with Grandma.

Grandma’s birth certificate and her christening record provide the same place of birth as each other but a different one from Grandma’s death certificate, obituary, and marriage license. The doctor who delivered her completed her birth certificate and provided the place of birth for that record. The pastor at the church where she was christened included her place of birth on that record, probably from what Grandma’s parents told him. Even if it wasn’t the parents who provided Grandma’s birth information on her christening record it is doubtful that the doctor provided that information on that record–thus making the birth certificate and christening record independent sources. Independent because their probable informants were different and those those informants were not relying on what someone else told them to be true.

The probable independence of sources does not mean that they are necessarily accurate. There’s a little more to record analysis than that. But determining the probability that two sources that agree are actually independent of each other is a good starting point. Perceived reliability of the informant, potential punishment for lying on the document, and any “hidden agendas” of the informant are all factors to be considered when determining the reliability of a statement made in a record

Evidence Explained addresses this same concept in section 1.9 on “Quantity versus Quality.” We were a little more verbose here than Mills was but we’re essentially giving the concept the same treatment.

Do you think about genealogical independence?