{"id":433,"date":"2013-12-09T11:41:27","date_gmt":"2013-12-09T19:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/?p=433"},"modified":"2018-09-20T07:16:54","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T14:16:54","slug":"on-certainty-in-genealogy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/?p=433","title":{"rendered":"On Certainty in Genealogy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In June, I wrote an article on collaborative genealogy<\/a> for Avotaynu<\/em>.[1]<\/a> \u00a0In\u00a0recent articles,\u00a0Israel Pickholtz<\/a> and Sallyann Amdur Sack-Pikus<\/a>\u00a0have responded by raising concerns about collaborative genealogy, especially as it is practiced on the leading collaborative genealogy platform Geni.com<\/a>.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Both authors suggest that genealogy on Geni is not for the \u201cserious\/accomplished\/seasoned genealogy researcher.\u201d\u00a0 In his most recent article, Pickholtz uses the term \u201cserious\u201d no fewer than five times to describe his differing approach.\u00a0 Elsewhere the authors describe their opposing genealogical method as producing results that are \u201cauthoritative,\u201d \u201cdefinitive,\u201d \u201cverified,\u201d \u201cproven,\u201d \u201cfully vetted,\u201d \u201caccurate,\u201d \u201cvalidated,\u201d \u201ccorrect\u201d and \u201ccertain.\u201d\u00a0 The implication throughout these articles is always that the genealogy that I and others do on Geni is none of these fine things.\u00a0 So certain is Pickholtz that his, and only his, method leads to truth that he defines his own mantra, and the lesson he would have us teach new genealogists, as \u201cif it might be wrong, it doesn\u2019t belong.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the problem is a philosophical one.\u00a0 The \u201cserious\u201d genealogist, as defined by Pickholtz and Sack-Pikus, is a positivist.\u00a0 He or she believes that empirical genealogical facts can be conclusively verified as true by following prescribed rules.\u00a0 The Genealogical Standards Manual <\/a>of the Board for Certification of Genealogists<\/a> (BCG), and other such manuals propounded by groups of professional genealogists, is a positivist attempt to set forth such rules.\u00a0 As a lawyer, I find the positivist approach very appealing.\u00a0 It is comforting to begin with the rules set forth in code books and precedents and think of the practice of law as merely an application of the rules to the facts of the case.\u00a0 But as a scientific approach to determining empirical facts, positivism leaves a lot to be desired.<\/p>\n

Let me explain.\u00a0 Positivists set up rules for interpreting evidence and assume that these rules lead to \u201cverified\u201d results.\u00a0 In a court of law, a judge will exclude hearsay or documents that lack foundation (a verified source), in order to prevent consideration of evidence that might lead to an incorrect result.\u00a0 Similarly, in the Genealogical Standards Manual you can read about \u201cunsound presumptions \u2013 concepts that may be valid, but cannot be accepted as true without supporting evidence.<\/i>\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 As the first example of an unsound presumption, the BCG lists \u201cA man\u2019s widow was the mother of all (or any) of his children.\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Now, a positivist following prescribed rules, and interested only in facts that can be \u201cverified\u201d according to those rules, might be able to dismiss and exclude for lack of corroborating evidence the possibility (even the likelihood) that a man\u2019s widow is the mother of his children, but that isn\u2019t necessarily the best scientific approach for a genealogist trying to make an educated guess at the mother of those children.<\/p>\n

There is another approach, which I will call the \u201csophisticated\u201d approach, to differentiate it from the \u201cserious\u201d approach propounded by Pickholtz and Sack-Pikus. \u00a0Genealogy is the science of assembling empirical genealogical facts such as \u201cA is the son of X and Y\u201d or \u201cB is the sibling of C\u201d or \u201cX is the husband of Y\u201d.\u00a0 The sophisticated genealogist understands that there is no scientific method that can definitively determine the truth of any genealogical fact.\u00a0 Rather, as the great 20th century philosopher of science\u00a0Karl Popper<\/a>, a critic of the positivists, suggested, the best that one can say about any posited empirical fact is that it has not been falsified, that there is no evidence suggesting it is incorrect.\u00a0 Take, for example, the fact that \u201cY is the father of A.\u201d\u00a0 A serious genealogist, following a positivist approach, might say that this fact has been conclusively determined to be correct because it has been verified in a birth certificate, a document presumed under the Genealogical Standards Manual to be true and correct.\u00a0 Of course, the sophisticated genealogist knows that paternity is a tricky thing.\u00a0 Sometimes the father listed on the birth certificate is not in fact the biological father.\u00a0 What appears true and correct to the serious genealogist is for the sophisticated genealogist merely a likely possibility, not yet disproved or falsified.<\/p>\n

A sophisticated genealogist would never<\/i> say \u201cif it might be wrong, it doesn\u2019t belong,\u201d because the sophisticated genealogist understands that every<\/i> assertion of an empirical genealogical fact might be wrong.\u00a0 No matter how many genealogical research standards are applied, the empirical truth of observed facts can never be conclusively determined.\u00a0 There is always a chance that the evidence has led to the wrong conclusion.\u00a0 So, when someone asks me, as they often do with regard to genealogical profiles on Geni, whether I am certain that something is correct, I always answer: \u201cI am never certain of anything!\u201d\u00a0 I am always looking for new evidence, open to the possibility that something I had believed to be true has been falsified in some way.<\/p>\n

For good reason, Karl Popper\u2019s approach of empirical falsification<\/a> is today much preferred by scientists over the positivist approach.\u00a0 If genealogy is the science of assembling empirical genealogical facts, then empirical falsification may be the best philosophical framework for a sophisticated genealogist.\u00a0 I think of every genealogical fact I put on Geni as a hypothesis waiting to be tested by other genealogists.\u00a0 If they find a fact that tends to disprove the hypothesis, it is easy to change the hypothesis to fit the newly discovered fact.\u00a0 That flexibility is what I like about Geni.\u00a0 Contrary to what those unfamiliar with Geni, like Pickholtz and Sack-Pikus, have presumed, Geni does not use an algorithm to merge or change any profile.\u00a0 All changes are made by humans and are viewable by other users.\u00a0 Each profile includes a \u201cRevisions\u201d tab that records any changes that were made, so prior hypotheses can be revisited.\u00a0 Geni curators are not authoritarian arbiters of correctness, but rather facilitators who help other people discuss and resolve or preserve differing views on the Geni platform.\u00a0 For example, to answer one of the criticisms of Sack-Pikus, there is a trick that curators can use for people who were adopted, so that you can have two sets of parents, biological and adopted.\u00a0 I have used this for the poet Richard Beer-Hofmann<\/a>, whose mother died in childbirth leading to his adoption by his mother\u2019s sister, who was married to his father\u2019s nephew\/first cousin.\u00a0 It\u2019s a complicated family, but on Geni you can show all the relationships, a necessity for historians trying to figure out ambiguous references to family members in the poet\u2019s biographical writings.<\/p>\n

Pickholtz dismisses the analogy to Wikipedia, but he misunderstands the argument because he is stuck in the positivist philosophical framework.\u00a0 Wikipedia and Geni are not mechanical arbiters of objective truth according to some positivist rule book.\u00a0 Rather, they succeed because they are platforms that allow scientific collaboration by many millions of people, each presenting empirical facts and testing hypotheses.<\/p>\n

The underpinning of the sophisticated approach is to always add ever more documents and sources so that others can retrace the steps and test the hypothesis. I have personally uploaded about 14,000 documents to Geni.\u00a0 The ability to allow others to recreate an experiment and independently assess the evidence is at the heart of the scientific method.\u00a0 The results of this type of scientific collaboration on a shared platform are clearly superior, leading to more discoveries and more correction of mistakes.\u00a0 From his website, Pickholtz is thrilled to receive a note from another researcher \u201cevery few months.\u201d\u00a0 On Geni, I receive about five messages per day<\/i> related to work I have done.\u00a0 The work on the tree is never-ending and continuous.<\/p>\n

Genealogy can be done in many different ways and collaborative genealogy on Geni is not meant to supplant or replace other forms of genealogy.\u00a0 If you like, you can and should keep your own file, whether written or digital, for keeping certain types of records and work in progress.\u00a0 I have nothing against websites like Pickholtz\u2019s, or even the obviously silly way he attaches percentages of certainty (30%, 50%, 90% etc.) to various speculative connections.[5]<\/a>\u00a0 I find all<\/i> types of assertions of genealogical facts interesting and useful.<\/p>\n

So, as a sophisticated genealogist, if I were asked, as Pickholtz was, what advice to give to new genealogists, I would say: have fun.\u00a0 Don\u2019t be dour like the serious genealogists.\u00a0 Make the best guesses you can, based on the facts at your disposal.\u00a0 But don\u2019t fret too much over whether every fact you set forth in your tree is correct or not, or whether it is verified according to someone\u2019s rule book of standards.\u00a0 No one, not even the serious genealogists, can conclusively determine the truth.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a>\u00a0E. R. Schoenberg, \u201cIs\u00a0Our<\/i>\u00a0Tree Better Than\u00a0My<\/i>\u00a0Tree? The Benefits and Pitfalls of Collaborative Genealogy<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0Avotaynu<\/em>\u00a0XXIX, No. 2, p. 7.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[2]<\/a>\u00a0I. Pickholtz, \u201cGetting It Wrong<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0Avotaynu<\/em>\u00a0XXIX, No. 2, p. 21; S. A.\u00a0Sack-Pikus,\u00a0\u201cAs I See It,\u201d\u00a0Avotaynu<\/em>\u00a0XXIX, No. 3, p. 2; I. Pickholtz, \u201cConcerns about Geni and Other \u2018Collaborative Genealogy\u2019 Websites<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0Avotaynu<\/em>\u00a0XXIX, No. 3, p. 14; S. A.\u00a0Sack-Pikus,\u00a0\u201cCollaborative Genealogy: Some Cautions on an Exciting and Useful Advance,\u201d\u00a0Avotaynu<\/em>\u00a0XXIX, No. 3, p. 13.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[3]<\/a> The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual<\/em> (2000), p. 11 (emphasis in original).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[5]<\/a> See http:\/\/www.pikholz.org\/General\/TreesIndex.html<\/a> (viewed November 28, 2013).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In June, I wrote an article on collaborative genealogy for Avotaynu.[1] \u00a0In\u00a0recent articles,\u00a0Israel Pickholtz and Sallyann Amdur Sack-Pikus\u00a0have responded by raising concerns about collaborative genealogy, especially as it is practiced on the leading collaborative genealogy platform Geni.com.[2]\u00a0 Both authors suggest … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1590,"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions\/1590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schoenblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}