Critical Thinking – Completeness of Records

Experienced genealogists get very frustrated by the inaccuracies in online family trees.  It’s not just limited to those online – I have seen paper trees and even “reputable” sources like Burkes with mistakes in them.  Of course, online trees make it much easier for mistakes to be copied.

So in this post, I’m going to look at critical thinking and the completeness of records.

Critical thinking is making sure we’re thinking about what the records we’ve got are saying.  And most importantly, are we coming to the right conclusions about them.  This is Step 3 of the Genealogical Proof Standard (I’ll do a post on that soon).

Completeness of records is often where we go astray.  There being only one record doesn’t mean it is The One.  You should never assume that any database has ALL the records until you’ve double checked.  Some of the originals may be missing or the database may not have access to all of them.

Now onto my example:

My gt-grandmother Harriet has her father listed on her marriage certificate as John Kime, builder.  Her 1876 birth certificate lists her father as Robert, maltster.  Have I got the right person?  Yes, I have.  Other sources and now DNA have confirmed the link.  And this post would be about Step 4 of the Genealogical Proof Standard instead.

The problem is with her father Robert’s birth.  So what do we know about Robert?

From the census (where he always called Robert):

• 1841 – age 4, no occupation, born in the county
• 1851 – son, unmarried, age 13, no occupation, born Lincolnshire Thornton
• 1861 – lodger, unmarried, age 23, ag lab, born Lincoln Thornton
• 1871 – Head, married, age 34, maltsters lab, born Lincoln Thornton
• 1881 – Head, married, age 43, ag labour, born Linc Thornton
• 1891 – Head, married, age 53, no occupation, born England
• 1901 – Head, widower, age 63, road labourer, worker, born Lincs Thornton
• 1911 – father, age 73, widower, no occupation, born Lincoln Thornton

So he was born around 1836-38.  His parents were Thomas and Mary Kime (from the census too).  There is no John listed with the family.

Other family members have identified him as being John Kime born in 1839 to Thomas Kime and his wife Mary Leesing.

And for a long time I agreed with them – after all his daughter called him John at her marriage.

But….

On his birth certificate, John is born on 15 January 1839 which on 6 June 1841 when the 1841 Census was taken, he would have been 2.  Most parents know the difference between a 2 year old and a 4 year old, but we don’t know 2 things:

• who gave the census information?
• why did John get 2 years older and change his name to Robert?

It’s looking a bit suspect!  And this is compounded when you check the GRO death index and find a John Kime, aged 0, passing away in 1839 in the same Registration District.  There are no other John Kime births in 1838-9 which could be him.

So where to now?

Church records?

Church records didn’t stop because Civil records began.  Unfortunately, the only original records available online are Bishop’s Transcripts.  I say unfortunately because sometimes they are not copied from the originals with due care and attention.

For Thornton, Lincolnshire where John was born I found:

• baptism – John, son of Thomas and Mary Kyme – July the 6th 1839
• burial – John Kyme, January 31 1839, aged 2 weeks

The burial fits with the birth certificate but the baptism doesn’t.

So taking a small deviation into Step 4 of the Genealogical Proof Standard, why might that be?

When you look at the entries of the Bishop’s Transcript on the page where John is baptised, they have the following dates:

• July 6
• January 17
• July 22
• Nov 17

Perhaps a mistake was made? Perhaps it was meant to say January 16?  Who knows?

However, the birth certificate clearly states John is the son of Thomas and Mary and was born on January 15.  And equally clearly, he passed away at a very young age.

And more to the point, he’s therefore not Harriet’s father.

So why was this mistake made?  Because there is no record of Robert’s birth.

Why not?

Some complicated maths with the census dates and his age indicate it is likely that Robert was born in 1836 or the first half of 1837 – before Civil Registration began.  So we won’t find him there.

The search for Church Records has been interesting.  FamilySearch – my go-to for these things, only has baptisms up to 1812.  The Bishop’s Transcript’s baptisms allegedly go up to 1841, but there is a gaping hole where 1836-7 should be.

Lincolnshire Archives have confirmed they have Thornton’s baptism records, 1813-1994 in their collection.  And they haven’t been digitised on to their LincsToThePast site or FindMyPast where the other Lincolnshire parish records are.  There is where I need to go!

Let’s now go back to Harriet’s marriage certificate.  Why does it say her father was called John?

Again, we don’t know who provided the information.  The father’s information on marriage certificates is a secondary source – in other words, it can point us to a primary source (ie information on her father) but it is not contemporary to his birth and naming, so cannot be taken as absolute proof of those facts by itself.

And that is an example of critical thinking in genealogy.  Make sure you’ve checked all the possible sources before you make a conclusion.  Records may not be complete.