Genealogy Research Map created by Mark Tucker

WHAT IS THE GPS?

In the modern world, the initials GPS create images of smart phones, spy satellites, or navigation systems.  For most people, GPS is the Global Positioning System.  

In genealogy it is something completely different. GPS is the Genealogy Proof Standard.  So what is the Genealogy Proof Standard?  What does it mean for genealogy?  Why do we need a standard?

After a number of years of doing genealogy one soon learns that proving a fact, event, or relationship is not always that simple.  Beyond your own personal experiences with your family one learns that there are no absolute truths.  Even then, what you think you know about your parents, grandparents, or siblings, may not be necessarily the truth.  

As an example, my father has an official birth certificate by a government authority prepared when he was in his early teens.  The place of birth is a fabrication.  The place of birth documented on his birth certificate was created so that my father could avoid mandatory military service.  Another example involves his older brother.  This older brother was born during the Russian civil war following the Russian Revolution of 1917.  No one had a specific memory of his actual birth date.  Because he and his wife had no official government, civil, or religious birth documents, they both chose to celebrate their birthdays on October 31st. 

And everything I just told you is based on the credibility of those who told me these stories, my memory, and the validity of any accessible documents..  It is possible that part or all of what I just told you is inaccurate or a myth.  This is where a standard becomes important.  A standard provides a set of “best practices” to get the story correct and to avoid creating inaccuracies and to avoid perpetuating myths.  As genealogists gain experience, genealogy becomes less about collecting names and more about getting the genealogy right.

So how do we know what is “true” and “not true” when researching our family histories? How do we “prove” anything about our families?  From personal experience, we know that it is often easier to disprove a claim than to conclusively prove a fact, event, or relationship.   All it takes is one piece of evidence that contradicts or casts doubt on the established narrative.  A claim about a person, event or relationship can always be changed by new evidence or a change in the interpretation of the evidence in light of a new “fact” or understanding.

 To “prove” a conclusion requires significantly more evidence, more work, and justification.  And even then there can be some uncertainty and doubt about all or part of a claim about an ancestor. In general, the further back we go in our family histories the more uncertainty exists in the claims.

So how do professional genealogists and family historians address uncertainty,  inaccuracy, and mythology in a family history?  They employ what is known as the Genealogical Proof Standard or the GPS.  The Genealogical Proof Standard encodes what most “good” genealogists have done informally for years and what professional genealogists should be doing into an explicit standard so that when genealogists review or exchange information, they can understand the level of confidence to place in the reliability of the conclusions reached.

According to the Board for Certification of Genealogists, the Genealogical Proof Standard consists of the following five elements:

1. The completion of reasonably exhaustive research

2. Providing complete and accurate source citations.

3. Performing a thorough analysis and correlation of the evidence and information collected.

4. Resolving any conflicting evidence and contradictions.

5. Writing a sound conclusion based on the strongest evidence

The standard is used to measure the credibility of the conclusions reached in the research about the events, identities, and relationships of our ancestors.  The graphic above created by Mark Tucker summarizes how the GPS is incorporated into genealogy research.