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GEPS 018: Evidence style sources

196 bytes added, 04:43, 10 August 2011
Background: More points on more fields
= Background =
Many users, particularly if they aren't experienced researchers, may have difficulty abstracting the details from the wide variety of source types they encounter into the 4 fields that Gramps provides. Worse, the 4 fields aren't really adequate to capture all of the possible source information and redisplay it in well-formatted footnotes or endnotes in a report or reference links in a web page.
[http://www4.samford.edu/schools/ighr/faculty/mills_e.html Elizabeth Shown Mills] is an eminent American genealogist who has written extensively about collecting, analyzing, and citing evidence in genealogical research and publications, including the books [http://www4.samford.edu/schools/ighr/faculty/mills_e.html Evidence! Citation and Analysis for the Family Historian] and an expanded version, [http://www.amazon.com/Evidence-Explained-History-Artifacts-Cyberspace/dp/0806318066/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1 Evidence Explained: Citing Family History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace]. While most readers focus on the formats of the citations provided in the books, in reality every publisher has a style guide and Evidence Explained isn't used by any of them. The real value in these books is Mills's explanation of how to effectively analyze the evidence and how to integrate the many pieces of evidence (and Mills is well known for taking the "reasonably exhaustive search" requirement of the [http://www.bcgcertification.org/resources/standard.html BCG's Genealogical Proof Standard] to the absolute limit) into a well supported conclusion.

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