{"id":5061,"date":"2017-07-07T18:59:29","date_gmt":"2017-07-07T18:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=5061"},"modified":"2017-07-07T19:01:07","modified_gmt":"2017-07-07T19:01:07","slug":"probably","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=5061","title":{"rendered":"Probably"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>She died probably in Nicholas County, Kentucky, after the 1850 federal census enumeration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I debated how to write the sentence. Should it be &#8220;She probably died in Nicholas County, Kentucky, after the 1850 federal census enumeration,&#8221; &#8220;She died probably in Nicholas County, Kentucky, after the 1850 federal census enumeration,&#8221; or something similar.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-5062 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/sarah-sledd-1850-maybe.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"293\" height=\"278\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/sarah-sledd-1850-maybe.jpg 633w, https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/sarah-sledd-1850-maybe-300x284.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 293px) 100vw, 293px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I went with the second iteration for two reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Anyone alive in the 1850 census enumeration is dead. There is no &#8220;probably&#8221; about it.<\/li>\n<li>The &#8220;probably,&#8221; or more accurately the fact that I do not have a document that explicitly states where she died, is actually a qualification of her place of death. Nicholas County is probably where she died.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My statement needs to say that.<\/p>\n<p>It may seem like nitpicking. It is.<\/p>\n<p>Genealogical writing is about being as accurate as we can be and reflecting as accurately as we can what we &#8220;know&#8221; from the records we have accessed, the information they contain, and our interpretation of those records.<\/p>\n<p>Thinking carefully about what we know, what we &#8220;probably&#8221; know (or surmise), and what we don&#8217;t know is time well spent. It forces us to refine our analysis and our interpretations. It reduces the chance we make statements that are not supported by the records.<\/p>\n<p>That does not stop a careless researcher from taking my &#8220;probably died in Nicholas County&#8221; statement and phrasing it as &#8220;died in Nicholas County.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We can&#8217;t take responsibility for how others interpret our statements.<\/p>\n<p>And there&#8217;s no &#8220;probably&#8221; in that.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>She died probably in Nicholas County, Kentucky, after the 1850 federal census enumeration. I debated how to write the sentence. Should it be &#8220;She probably died in Nicholas County, Kentucky, after the 1850 federal census enumeration,&#8221; &#8220;She died probably in Nicholas County, Kentucky, after the 1850 federal census enumeration,&#8221; or something similar. I went with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}