RLP 101: Proof Arguments – Certification Preparation

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro Episode 101: Proof Arguments. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the creators of the Amazon bestselling book, Research Like a Pro a Genealogists Guide. I’m Nicole co-host of the podcast join Diana and me as we discuss how to stay organized, make progress in our research and solve difficult cases. Let’s go.

Nicole (44s):
Hi everyone, and welcome to the show. I’m Nicole Dyer and I’m here with my mom, Diana Elder, accredited genealogist. Hello, how are you?

Diana (53s):
I’m doing well, Nicole, how are you doing today?

Nicole (56s):
I’m doing great. What have you been working on?

Diana (59s):
Well, I’ve been finishing up several client projects, then I’m also working a little bit on one of my own projects. I’ve talked a lot on the podcast about my Cynthia Dillard project, and I had a listener email me and let me know that she had the family Bible pages for George W. Dillard and she sent those to me. And guess what? Cynthia is not listed in the family Bible. Instead there’s a Mariah who married a James listed in the family Bible, and she would be in the spot where I thought Cynthia was all along. So I think my theory has just been disproved. And so now I am going back over my past research reports and finding some other candidates to be Cynthia’s father.

Diana (1m 45s):
Wow. So sometimes it sort of can be disappointing, but I’m so grateful because for the study group, a couple of years ago, I did a big project and identified all the possible Dillard men in Georgia at the time that Cynthia would have been born in 1820 and 1830 census. And I was able to eliminate all of them except for one woman named Susan Dillard, who had a female in her household in 1830. That could be Cynthia. So I’m so glad I did that previous research because now I can go back and say, okay, if Georgia’s not her father, then it’s one of these other possibilities. So if we are keeping good notes, that’s so easy just to go back and remember everything I had done was great.

Nicole (2m 30s):
I think sometimes we have a theory and we just never get any information that really can help us come to a conclusion about the theory. So that’s wonderful that you got some very conclusive evidence that this family, it didn’t include Cynthia, and now you can move forward with a new candidate instead of never being able to really prove it, but never being able to eliminate it either.

Diana (2m 54s):
That is so true. Sometimes just eliminating a hypothesis is great because then you can move on and I’m really thinking maybe Susan Diller could be the sister-in-law of George. There are a couple of things that let me think that Cynthia is still somehow connected to the family because she named a son Leonidas and George had a son named Leonidas by a second wife. And in my mind that’s sort of an unusual name. So I’m still thinking there could be a connection and I’m just gonna keep working now on a different hypothesis and go to work on researching that.

Nicole (3m 31s):
Yeah. And it sounds like there were not that many men or women in Georgia at that time with the Dillard’s surname, if you were able to eliminate most of them, maybe they were all relatives.

Diana (3m 43s):
Yeah. It’s possible lots of new ideas for research that’s for sure.

Nicole (3m 48s):
Well, today we’re talking about Proof Arguments and this is the next episode in our series about Certification Preparation. And as you know, I’m preparing to submit my portfolio to the Board for Certification of Genealogists, and we’re just going through some of the different portfolio elements and discussing them. So today we’re talking about the portfolio element about writing a proof argument and it’s called the case study. So what is a proof argument? The definition from Genealogies Standards in the back of the book is that a proof argument is a documented narrative that explains why a genealogist’s answer to a complex genealogical problem should be considered acceptable, and which may either be a standalone product like a case study journal, article, a report, or appear within a chapter, family history or other genealogical work in print online or elsewhere.

Diana (4m 45s):
That’s a really good definition. And as you’re reading that, I was thinking about all the different places where I put a proof argument, you know, in my client work. A lot of times I’m doing something very similar to that. I am writing what I find, but then I’m coming to a conclusion and saying, well, this and this and this all come together to prove that this is the father or the mother or the spouse, or what have you. So I use Proof Arguments a lot in my client work, but then sometimes it’s fun to write that up as just a standalone product, taking a bunch of research that you’ve done in the past, and then just writing it all up. And I did that for Dad’s family, right after I became accredited.

Diana (5m 29s):
He said, well, why don’t you write up my Mary French case? He had done all this research on proving that Mary Anne Bryan was really Mary French, and that her father was James French. And so he dug out all of his findings, which were on various pieces of paper. And I actually redid all the research, found new things and then wrote it up. And it was really fun to see it all come together in a finished product. And we included that as our example for a Proof Arguments in our book, Research Like a Pro a Genealogist’s Guide. So I’ll probably be using this a little bit to illustrate today and you can go read it and see what you think. See if I proved it well enough.

Nicole (6m 10s):
I think we haven’t done a podcast episode about that case study in that might be a fun episode to do just all about that Proof Arguments.

Diana (6m 20s):
Yeah. It’s a fun case set in Kentucky proving a woman’s father. It’s been a fun one.

Nicole (6m 27s):
So let’s go back to talking more about Proof Arguments and the Genealogical Proof Standard. So in Genealogy Standards, it talks about Proof Arguments and says that a written conclusion is required if you’re going to meet the Genealogical Proof Standard. So there’s several kinds of genealogical proofs. The Proof Arguments that we’re talking about today is for the more complex genealogical problems, but the other types of genealogical proofs that we might have our proof statement, where all we need is two citations to demonstrate our accuracy of that conclusion. And we don’t need to have any extra explanation. So maybe we just have a sentence that states the conclusion and a footnote that has the two citations.

Nicole (7m 12s):
And then sometimes we need a proof summary. Maybe there’s a little bit more explanation needed because there’s some minor conflicts. And so maybe we need the list of evidence that supports the conclusion. So typically a proof summary only requires a few paragraphs or pages often in our research reports. This is what we’re doing. We’re sharing the evidence that leads to the conclusion. So we have a proof summary, but what a genealogical proof is not is just a source or a citation. I think sometimes beginning genealogists, maybe say like, I’ve proven this cause I have a source and you tell somebody, yeah, it’s proven I have a source.

Nicole (7m 55s):
The other person looks at the source and is like, well, I don’t see the evidence, that you see. So it really is important to meet the Genealogical Proof Standard by having a written conclusion. It sometimes will just be a simple statement on, sometimes it will be a simple proof summary with a bulleted list of evidence that’s source cited. But other times it will be a Proof Arguments where it’s a complex genealogical problem. And we need to have multiple pages that go through all the evidence and argue the point.

Diana (8m 24s):
I have a good example from a research project I just did last week. This was the one I was doing in Texas with the ancestors who had come up from Mexico. The client had the name Carlotta Garcia and her parents from the death certificate. And then we were able to find the baptism record and the civil registration that had the same parents. So there were no conflicts. We had two independent sources. The only thing that was a little different was the reporting of the actual date was off just a little bit for the birth date. So it was just a minor conflict, but because they were a little bit conflicting, I had to write a little bit explaining that when the father came in to register the birth several months later, perhaps he got the birth date wrong, or perhaps the priest wrote it down wrong when he was recording the baptism, but it was just very minor.

Diana (9m 20s):
And it was the same location, the same parents, the same names of the girl. And it was very close. So that could be resolved in just a few paragraphs.

Nicole (9m 30s):
What a good example of a proof summary, where there’s a minor conflict, but it doesn’t take more than a paragraph or two to explain it.

Diana (9m 41s):
Right.

Nicole (9m 41s):
In Genealogy Standards it also talks about when to use a Proof Argument. And I really liked this, it’s on page 35, and it talks about how when you have a challenging case that you need to explain, and that’s a really good time to utilize the proof argument. Sometimes your research will reveal significant conflicts. A minor conflict is kind of like what Diana just explained, where everything correlates, except maybe the birth date is just a little bit off and that can be explained, but a significant conflict would be like a real identity or relationship question that casts out onto the conclusion, right? Genealogy Standards doesn’t really define what a significant conflict is.

Nicole (10m 22s):
It just says in your opinion, or maybe that’s in the application guide, but it is in your opinion. So if you’re deciding whether or not to choose a case study for your portfolio, you just have to decide what you think is a significant conflict. So sometimes that’s challenging in the certification discussion group. One of the portfolios that we were allowed to read as an example, had chosen a conflict that one of the judges didn’t think was significant. I can’t remember now exactly what it was about, but I think it might’ve been a conflict of birth dates, but I think it’s interesting to consider what we think might be a significant conflict between evidence items.

Nicole (11m 3s):
Another time when you would want to use a Proof Arguments is when there is no direct evidence to reach a conclusion. So a case of indirect evidence building up a case of all these clues that lead you to a specific conclusion that you don’t have anything that directly states that conclusion, that’s the type of case study that I’m probably going to use for my portfolio. So hopefully I don’t find any direct evidence to make it so that I can’t use it for my portfolio, which is kind of the opposite of what we would typically hope to find as a genealogist, we’re usually wanting to find direct evidence.

Diana (11m 38s):
That is funny, and you never know. Back to my example of the George Dillard, who knew there was a family Bible out there and all of those evidence that I didn’t know about. So, you know, maybe you’ll find a land record or a probate record from someone you hadn’t even thought to research that directly states that. So I think it’s really wise to go with conflicting evidence,

Nicole (11m 58s):
For sure when you’re choosing that in Genealogy Standards, it also talks about how, when you’re deciding to use a Proof Arguments or not, if you need to have a lot of pages that describe the challenge and the conclusion, and it’s very extensive, then really that’s the time to create a proof argument. I just wanted to mention here that if you are wanting to learn more about creating a proof argument, you should get Tom Jones book called Mastering Genealogical Proof. And I studied that in a Study Group and it was a wonderful resource with questions that you can practice and answer, and then look up the answers in the back to see how your understanding compares with the answers.

Nicole (12m 40s):
So that was a really useful tool to prepare for this aspect of certification.

Diana (12m 45s):
That’s how I learned how to write my four generation report for accreditation, because I had to prove the links between generations, especially my third generation proving the father of Thomas Beverly Royston to be John Kerry Royston was an extensive proof argument, took several pages. And I remember studying Mastering Genealogical Proof every night, just trying to learn how you put things into writing because in our brains often we see all this evidence and we’re just thinking, okay, I know this has to be the father. That is another story altogether. When you have to write that down and try to make sense of it on paper or on your computer, and then add your citations and organize it.

Diana (13m 27s):
I think that’s one of the trickiest things is organizing it in a way that somebody else can read it and understand it.

Nicole (13m 33s):
Yes. Putting it in a logical order and making it so that, like you said, other people can follow your train of thought and agree with your evidence. Well, let’s talk about the certification requirements for the portfolio of this element, the case study. So within the application guide, it talks about how the case study can be from your own research. It can be your own family or a client’s family. The only thing in the portfolio that has to be from somebody outside of your own family is the report. So really the purpose of this element is to demonstrate that you know how to use the genealogical proof standard and to show that you can resolve a significant problem, in your opinion, of relationship or identity that can not be resolved from uncontested direct evidence.

Nicole (14m 23s):
There’s that statement again, then we can’t resolve it from direct evidence, but if we have direct evidence that conflicts with other evidence, then we can still use it. So maybe that’s what I’ll find, who knows. I really just need to get going on the research and start writing up reports. And then eventually I’ll be able to decide if it’s going to work. To me, it looks like a pretty good case of indirect evidence. So then there are different techniques that you can use according to the application guide for your case study, you can show that indirect or negative evidence or both, or you can build a case study that resolves a conflict between two items of direct evidence, or he can resolve a conflict between direct and indirect or negative evidence.

Nicole (15m 6s):
And then once you decide which technique your case study is using, you need to choose a title for your case study that describes the technique you’re using. So maybe your title of the French case would be Indirect evidence Finds a Father for Mary French, right?

Diana (15m 21s):
Yeah. That’s so interesting that you have to really define what kind of evidence you’re using. My title that I put in the book was Determining the Father of Mary Ann French Bryan Atwood, Proof Argument, a Case of Indirect Evidence.

Nicole (15m 34s):
Well, there you go.

Diana (15m 35s):
So I defined it as indirect evidence without even having learned about certification Proof Arguments. I figured it out.

Nicole (15m 42s):
You can become certified like that. No problem.

Diana (15m 46s):
And maybe I will down the road if I can have time to put together a portfolio.

Nicole (15m 50s):
That’s funny. Good job on that title. So the thing about the case study is that you are not required to submit copies of any documents that show the evidence. You just need to have your complete citation. So you don’t have to include documents. There really isn’t anything in the portfolio that requires you to submit the documents. The only thing is that in the report that you made for somebody else, if you gave them documents, then you would need to include that in your report. I think that’s a point of difference from accreditation. Like we talked about in our last episode where we talked about certification, because with the four generation report, you did include documents.

Diana (16m 26s):
Yeah. We could include up to 40 documents and they had to be the key documents. I think that is because as a reviewer, it just makes it easier for you when you’re reviewing someone’s project to just go look at the document and save some time, you know, you’re reviewing 4 generations. It’s a pretty hefty thing to do that for someone. And it just makes it easier if you’ve got their documents right there and you don’t have to go retrace their footsteps through their citations.

Nicole (16m 51s):
So who are the Reviewers in the accreditation process? Do you have to do that?

Diana (16m 55s):
Yeah, I have reviewed a few. They will always choose a reviewer from the region. So I did the Gulf south region. Now that region has been changed now to Southeast and south central United States. So if you started it a while ago, you can still do that. So I may not have many more to work on unless they give me one of those other regions. I’m not sure how they’re going to do that. But yeah, if you were to accredit and you were going to do England, your project would be reviewed by someone who had accredited in England, because you want to have someone who’s an expert in that region look at your work.

Nicole (17m 34s):
Yes. I’m not super knowledgeable about how the judges are chosen for the reviewing of the certification portfolios, but with certification, it’s not based on a region it’s just based on methodology. So I’m not sure that they try to match you up with somebody who’s an expert in that region or not. That would be an interesting question to ask somebody who…Let’s talk about the rubric, which is an excellent resource for anybody who wants to follow the Genealogy Standards. The Board for Certification has created these rubrics for evaluating applications for certification. And they were recently revised in 2019 to include the DNA standards.

Nicole (18m 15s):
So each of the requirements in the portfolio have their own little set of standards or indicators in the rubric. So I went through the rubric indicators for the case study, and I thought I would just talk about each of them briefly. The first thing that they’re looking for in the case study is the extent of research, if you meet the standards for this indicator, then your research will show that you have really broadened out your research to include other people, not just your subject, showing that you understand the FAN club principle and that the extent of your research has been broad enough to include a lot of sources that are potentially relevant, add relevant jurisdictions that maybe the person only lived in for a small part of their life, or maybe don’t seem like they pertain to the research question, but that they might contain a source that could be helpful.

Nicole (19m 7s):
So it’s really showing that you were broad and gathering sources and you didn’t just focus in on a small period of time and a small set of sources, but that you did reasonably exhaustive research.

Diana (19m 19s):
I love that term, reasonably exhaustive research. And I know that trips people up a lot wondering, you know, how reasonable, how exhaustive does that have to be. But I think we kind of know deep down when there’s more that we could do. And that’s kind of like what this Dillard case. I just haven’t felt like I proved it, even though I’ve done a ton of research and maybe that’s because it’s wrong, but still, you know, you, you kind of realize when there are many more sources or there’s more people in the FAN club, more places that you could research. And we teach that to all of our study groups and everything that these brick walls are brick walls for a reason, and we have got to broaden our research.

Nicole (20m 1s):
Yes, I think so. And one of the things that this indicator says, if you meet the standards, is that you have extended your research to sources that might challenge your other findings. And I think that’s an interesting thing to consider that we have to try as hard to disprove our conclusion as we do to prove it or else we have confirmation bias, right?

Diana (20m 22s):
Yeah. I think about that all the time. How often do we do that? We find these things that line up, and it just seems like this is the right thing, but we really do have to try to disprove as well as prove our argument.

Nicole (20m 37s):
Right. I love that. You’re doing that with the Dillard research, really looking into this family Bible and to the children that it mentioned not being afraid of looking at the evidence that might disprove what you had thought.

Diana (20m 47s):
Yeah. I’ve thought a lot about it. And I had thought, you know, I could have just written up a Proof Arguments and lined everything up and said, okay, George Dillard has to be the father, all these things work. And I think that would be a great example of confirmation bias because I had done so much research and thought it just had to be him. But you know, that is not what we do. I don’t ever feel comfortable in telling a client or for my own research that this is absolutely the ancestor, unless I feel like I’ve done enough research. And often that has included some DNA evidence, which is wonderful because that can really positively prove our conclusions if we put it all together.

Nicole (21m 30s):
That’s such a good point. I’m really glad you brought up DNA for this because in this indicator it says that if DNA is used, then we need to make sure that we meet standards 51 and 53. For those of you who’ve read Genealogy Standards, it doesn’t say that we have to use DNA, but we need to consider using it in our reasonably exhaustive research, if it could be relevant to the problem.

Diana (21m 53s):
Well, I’ve decided that DNA has definitely got to help me with the Dillard case because I just have a feeling after all the research I’ve done that I’m going to need DNA as the final proof. So I am really excited to start working with DNA so I can finally figure out who Cynthia’s father is.

Nicole (22m 13s):
Yay! Well, I think that you did a really good job with starting off this research in the documentary sources, because a lot of the experts recommend that you do the first phase of research for your difficult cases that might want to include DNA in traditional records first, so that you have a really strong foundation of understanding who the candidates were. And when you start going into the DNA, you’ll notice names that you’ve already seen before and the records that could be the siblings to your person. You’ll just be better able to understand the DNA evidence if you have a strong foundation in the traditional records.

Diana (22m 48s):
Yeah. And that’s why we do traditional genealogy alongside our DNA work.

Nicole (22m 53s):
Okay, let’s go to the next indicator in the rubric. So the next one is adequacy of source citations, and it just says that the sources are cited fully and consistently, if you don’t meet the standards there, then you have missing citations, they’re incomplete or inaccurate, or you don’t have any style or consistency to your citations. So you can see that source citations are important to be consistent and to be accurate. The next indicator is quality of evidence that indicator for meeting standards there is that the evidence is drawn from reliable sources and information, and the use of any weak evidence is logically defended. So have you ever had to use weak evidence in a Proof Arguments or a report that you’ve been using, like an authored narrative or something?

Diana (23m 41s):
Yeah, every so often. And in this case study of Mary Anne French Bryan, I do use a derivative source and we tried so hard to get to the original. It is a census from the Catholic parish, the Barons Parish Census in Perry county, Missouri. And it was just posted on Ancestry, and it is an image of the derivative source, but I don’t like to really source something that just came off of Ancestry, but because it was an image and we tried contacting and trying to find it. So if any of our listeners know how to get a hold of something original from Perry county, Missouri, let me know because we kind of struggled with getting an original record there, but I felt like it had such good evidence in it that I used it.

Diana (24m 28s):
I wouldn’t say it was weak evidence. I would just say it’s not as an original of the source as I would like to generally use.

Nicole (24m 35s):
Definitely. You’re right, a derivative isn’t as reliable as an original. So yeah, it would be good to find that original, but sometimes the originals have been destroyed and I’ve seen that in case studies for the author has had to use a derivative and they explain, you know, the originals aren’t available. So this is all we have.

Diana (24m 52s):
Yeah. We don’t always live in a perfect genealogy world where we get everything we want, you have to use what is out there and what is available.

Nicole (25m 1s):
All right. The next one in the rubric is correlation and assembly of evidence to meet the standards for this indicator. We need to make sure that we present the most significant connections and contradictions in the evidence and that any conflicting evidence is presented fully and accurately. So we can’t ignore any contradictions in the evidence. We have to really talk about them and we need to compare and contrast and correlate.

Diana (25m 27s):
I think sometimes we just want to ignore that, you know, when we’ve got two different birth dates. The Mexico, Texas project, I just did, one of the ancestors Onofrio Garcia, seven different birth dates ranging from 1841 to 1873. How is that for some contradicting information? Had to do a little table with that and do some explanation about why this one is an outlier, we can throw it out. This one wouldn’t make sense cause they wouldn’t be married at the age 13, you know, come to one, that’s more sensible, but we’ll definitely have all that. And we need to address that. We can’t just ignore it.

Nicole (26m 6s):
Yes. That brings us to the next indicator, which is the resolution of conflicting evidence. This was a very brief statement. To meet the standards you just have to make sure that your conflict resolutions are logical, that’s it. And to partially meet the standards, conflict resolutions are plausible, but not fully clear or persuasive. And then if you don’t meet the standards, conflicting evidence is left unresolved or most conflict resolutions are illogical, unclear or unconvincing. So when I read this, I just thought, well, how do we know if it’s logical or not? I have heard a few times some speakers talk about different resources, understanding logic, and learning about that.

Nicole (26m 47s):
So then I went and I searched through all my handouts in my Google drive from Genealogy classes. And I came across one from NGS 2019. And I really want to listen to this talk. I just listened to the beginning of it, but it’s from Michael Hait, and it’s called Proving Your Case Using the Rules of Logical Argument. And he had a really great syllabus that included a very long bibliography with a lot of articles online and a couple of books that are all about logic and arguments. One of them is called Understanding Arguments and Introduction to Informal Logic by Walter Sennett Armstrong and Robert J Focalin. And I looked up the textbook on Amazon and it was like $35 or something.

Nicole (27m 30s):
So I might have to get that book, although there were some really great free articles to read online as well. There’s one at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy that’s all about deductive and inductive arguments. And it also talks about the validity of arguments and the soundness of arguments. And there are specific definitions that tell you if an argument is sound or if it’s valid or not. This is something that I noticed that I really need to study a little bit more about before I embark on my writing of my Proof Arguments, just so that I can understand the basic principles of logic

Diana (28m 5s):
That is so fascinating. And we don’t hear a lot about that in our genealogy work. I’m really fascinated to hear what you learn. I think that in the NGSQ, there was an entire article on logic if I remember right, and I don’t have the reference, but I remember reading it, thinking this is so interesting. And I don’t think my brain works like that. I think I do it more creatively than mathematically. You know, I think that the article of NGSQ was mathematical A plus B equals C and you know, using some equations. So not really what I love to do, you know, I did pass algebra with an a, but…

Nicole (28m 47s):
I think we tend to just do it naturally, like you did with the Mary French and the syllogism that you use there. If the sister’s father is James, then Mary’s father is James, you know?

Diana (28m 60s):
Yeah.

Nicole (29m 1s):
But it is helpful to understand why an argument might be unsound or illogical. And that it’s not just a subjective term, that there are objective definitions out there that tell us if something is logical. If something is sound, something is valid. And I think understanding those will be super helpful in writing a proof argument. So that takes me to the next indicator, which is soundness of conclusions. And the way that you meet the standards for this is that the final conclusion and intermediate conclusions are consistent with reliable and sufficient evidence. So that just is showing that everything is sound that your argument all leads to the conclusion that you’re trying to state.

Diana (29m 43s):
Well, and I think it’s important to come to a conclusion. You know, you can’t just present two different things and say, well, it could be this set of parents, or it could be the set of parents. You know, you do that in research reports, but if you’re doing a Proof Arguments, you have to come to a conclusion about why one set is better than another set and explain your reasoning. And sometimes in genealogy, we never really come to a hundred percent proof. Maybe we’re working at the 95% level, but we can still say, this is almost certainly the set of parents. What do you think about that?

Nicole (30m 20s):
Well, I was just thinking that in logic, they say that you either have a valid argument or not valid argument, and you can’t say it’s partially valid. So I wonder how that would relate. I’m not an expert, but I think when you have met the GPS, then you can say that you’ve proven it, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be overturned. I think when we’re doing research reports, we have to use the qualifiers, like you said, of this is almost certainly so-and-so, but then once we’ve built a case and we’re writing the Proof Arguments and we’ve met all the requirements of the Genealogical Proof Standard, then I think we are able to say, this is proven until further evidence is found. You know what I mean?

Diana (31m 1s):
Yeah. I think that’s exactly right. And I do use the qualifiers in my reports, but I’m just looking at my conclusion for the Mary French case and I definitely say it, I say correlation and analysis of the records prove that Mary, wife of Ignatius Bryan of Harden county, Kentucky was the daughter of James French also Harden county. So I don’t say almost certainly. I just say it proves that she was.

Nicole (31m 25s):
Yeah. And you did reasonably exhaustive research there. I mean, you looked at all these different land records and probate and you found lots of indirect evidence that led you to that conclusion and that one census that was a derivative record, that wasn’t your only piece of evidence that you had, you had built a whole case and you probably still could have, I think, made your case without that census that showed that indirect evidence that she was the sister of a woman who said her father was James French, because you had all this other evidence of them interacting and probate and wills and things as well.

Diana (31m 60s):
Right. Yeah. It is interesting looking back at this and you know, I’m just so glad I wrote this up because people had her connected to James on Ancestry and FamilySearch, and my husband had done a lot of this research, but until it’s written up as a Proof Argument, you look at those connections, I know I do, and you think, well, how do you know that where’s your proof? So the more we can actually write up these conclusions and put them out there as a source to our ancestor, you know, our report, our Proof Arguments to think how much better that would be for the Genealogy community to be able to actually read your profile, not just have to take your word for it.

Nicole (32m 40s):
Yes. I think everybody appreciates a written conclusion. So that takes me to the next indicator, which is clarity of writing. If you meet the standards for this, the writing throughout the project is clear, organized, and largely free from grammar, spelling, punctuation, and typographical errors. So clear writing is an important thing to be able to do. And sometimes that takes a lot of practice. And I really appreciate in Mastering Genealogical Proof that Tom Jones dedicates a whole page to a list of tips for having clear writing, just to kind of checklist to see am I doing these things it’s really helpful.

Diana (33m 14s):
It just takes practice. It really does. And you have to start somewhere. One of the best things you can do in writing is to share it with someone and let them read it. I thought when I did my third generation that I had done so well, and then I shared it with a friend who was also going through the accreditation process and she’s, she said, can we talk about this? And she came over and sat down with me and she said, you know, this is great. I get all the evidence, but I was really confused on this section and this section. And I realized that in my head, it was perfectly clear, but I had not organized well enough. So we really need to have other people read our stuff and give us feedback.

Nicole (33m 52s):
Yes. And I think that’s a challenge for people who are working on certification because the portfolio is not supposed to be peer reviewed. So I think it’s important before we create our work samples for the portfolio to participate in as many study groups as we can, where we do get peer review and evaluation from others, because then we can get some feedback that we can apply to how we do things and improve and practice. So we were talking about this actually like, how am I going to make sure that my portfolio samples are good without having somebody else read them and give me feedback. And one of the ideas that we came up with is to write it and then go away from it for a few weeks and then come back to it with fresh eyes to see if it still makes sense.

Diana (34m 40s):
That’s a really good idea. And the other thing that I like to do with my research reports is to actually print them out and read them on paper because sometimes paper makes you look at things a little differently than just looking at it on a screen. And so I like to let them sit overnight and then look at it the next day on paper and then go through it with my red pen and mark it up just a different perspective on it.

Nicole (35m 4s):
Yeah, that’s really smart. And I’m just going to have to do that because I can’t have you proofread my samples.

Diana (35m 11s):
You’re on your own.

Nicole (35m 12s):
I can do it. I’ve had a lot of peer feedback in the past from the Study Group and from ProGen right now, it’s been really great. I’m very much enjoying it. So the last indicator in the rubric for the case study is respect for privacy. And if you’re using DNA test takers, then you need to have written permission from all the living test takers that are referenced in the case study. And I’m planning to use DNA so this is something I’m probably going to want to work on from the very start as I am corresponding with these people, just asking them for permission to use their information.

Diana (35m 44s):
That’s a great idea. In fact, I think that’s probably something we should build into our DNA research is always asking that permission because sometimes you connect with them and communicate with them and then people don’t answer your emails anymore or whatever. So it’s nice to get that right at the beginning.

Nicole (35m 59s):
Yeah. It’s kind of tricky though, because when we first get started with contacting them, we don’t really know if we’re going to be able to prove what we’re trying to prove, but we can at least tell them like I’m seeking to find the parents and prove them. And if I am able to do that, can I use your name in my Proof Arguments that I would like to publish? Because that is the point of doing our genealogy research. We want to be able to prove things. And if we’re going to use DNA, we are going to have to have sufficient verifiable data. And we use these people’s names and other people can know who they are and be able to contact them as well. So it’s a new thing to think about when we’re incorporating DNA evidence. Right? Well, we have already talked a little bit about how to choose your case study. So now that we’re done with the rubric, I’ll just say this again, that in the certification discussion group, we were advised to choose a case study with conflicting evidence because that’s typically a little bit easier.

Nicole (36m 49s):
And if you choose a case with indirect evidence, and then you find direct evidence that solves your case, then you might have to start over with a different case. That did happen to your friend and she she’s actually thinking of doing accreditation now. Our last topic today is how to organize your Proof Arguments and in Mastering Genealogical Proof, Tom Jones gives us four different ways that we can organize the body of our argument. And the first is to have a single hypothesis where we state our conclusion, and then we just go through all the supporting evidence. And then another way to do it would be an alternative hypothesis organization where you propose to are more competing, hypothetical answers to the research question.

Nicole (37m 30s):
And then you eliminate all the other hypothesis except for one. Then the next one is building blocks. And this one is a really common way to organize a case study. We see this a lot in the NGSQ articles, where you organize the argument around the points that support the conclusion and each point builds on the one before it. So you start with the evidence that provides a foundation for later evidence, and it builds on it until you reach the conclusion. And then the last way is syllogisms. Syllogisms are if/then statements where you have a proposition and IF that proposition is true, THEN the other thing is true, which is the premise.

Nicole (38m 12s):
What kind of organizations strategies have you used?

Diana (38m 16s):
I’m just thinking of my Mary French Proof Arguments and it definitely was a single hypothesis that her father was James French. And I state that right upfront at the very beginning and restated at the conclusion and all the way through, I use building blocks to build my case. And then I also use a syllogism because I have that Parish census where Monica French is listed with her husband and she states her father was James. And then Mary French is listed as Monica sister. So I say, well, if these were sisters and Monica states her father is James then James would be the father of Mary.

Diana (38m 56s):
So it’s kind of fun to see that a little syllogism there, but everything else pretty much just built on each other. And then at the very end, I do a table to kind of review and remind the reader of the different evidence and how it all comes together. That in a client project that we just finished up this week in England, we had alternate hypothesis where there were two sets of parents that could be possible and both had to be explored and one eliminated in one becoming the main set of parents. So that was an interesting case too.

Nicole (39m 33s):
That’s interesting that you have combined several of these. Tom Jones does that as well. In his book, he says that like many complex Proof Arguments, his example article uses all four approaches. The overall structure of his example is a single hypothesis, but then one of the sections of the article has three alternative hypotheses that he considers and then he eliminates two of them. And then he also uses building blocks throughout with all of these various supporting conclusions. And then several of the various sections of his article have some syllogisms in them. If this person lived in a certain place, then he was related to this person. So he uses all four, which I think is really interesting.

Nicole (40m 15s):
We don’t have to just use one, but we can. Another thing that I noticed that he says in Mastering Genealogical Proof, it’s that when we use syllogisms, a lot of the times we’re using some negative evidence, like if no person by this name paid taxes in this certain year and they sold land in the year after that, then they moved or they died. So I think a lot of the time when we use negative evidence, we are using syllogisms

Diana (40m 43s):
Oh, that’s an interesting point. I do like to use that type of evidence, especially in my Southern research when we’re relying on things like tax lists and census records to prove when someone died because they don’t show up again. Very interesting. Well, this has been so fun to talk all about Proof Arguments and the certification requirements. And I really like contrasting what you’re doing with certification, with what I did with accreditation. I just think it’s so interesting. Well, how can our listeners learn more at that case studies or Proof Arguments?

Nicole (41m 16s):
Well, as you know, we are in an NGSQ Study Group together, which I would recommend that everyone considering writing a case study or a Proof Arguments also do, it’s really good to read other people’s case studies. And it gives you so many ideas for how to do it, especially if you could read some that are within the same area or region that are researching, because it helps you to see which sources were consulted and different types of evidence and different strategies that were utilized, but just overall to see how they’re created, how they’re organized and to just kind of analyze them after you read them with a group is so helpful. When I first started reading the NGSQ I struggled with reading it and understanding it, but after learning a lot of the principles in Mastering Genealogical Proof then it starts to really make sense as you read the case studies.

Nicole (42m 6s):
So I’d recommend first reading Mastering Genealogical Proof, and then start analyzing various case studies in the NGSQ and other journals and asking the questions from Mastering Genealogical Proof about those case studies. What was the research question and how did they organize the Proof Arguments? Did they use consistent citations? Did they have sound logic and conclusions and that kind of thing, and just trying to understand and evaluate them that has been really helpful for me. And I think it’s a good practice.

Diana (42m 34s):
Yeah. I think that we always have to continue learning as genealogists, perhaps you’ve been researching for years and years and years, and you have all these great conclusions, but they’re just living in your head and in your genealogy software, really consider starting to write up some of these conclusions and it doesn’t have to be fancy or formal. Just get started writing, trying to put into words, what you think is real. And I guarantee as you do that, it’ll help you with your research. Well, I think next episode, Nicole will have to do a case study and talk through the entire Mary French case so that our listeners can kind of get a feel for all the different things that came together to prove her father.

Diana (43m 15s):
What do you think about that?

Nicole (43m 16s):
I think that would be great. That sounds like fun.

Diana (43m 20s):
All right. Well, I think that it’s time for us to wrap up this episode and we just really hope that everybody listening is learning about proving your conclusions and Proof Arguments. It’s such a fun thing to be able to prove something that you’ve discovered it really is.

Nicole (43m 36s):
It is. And it’s important. All right, everyone have a great week and we will talk to you again next week. Bye bye.

Diana (43m 43s):
Bye bye.

Nicole (43m 43s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our book Research Like a Pro a Genealogist Guide on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our Research Like a Pro online course or join our next Study Group. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com. To share your progress and ask questions join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our eCourse or Study Group. If you like what you heard and would like to support this podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.