Say you have an ancestor called John Smith, who lived in a small parish in the West of England. You know the year of his baptism, you know the place, you even know his parents' names, so you merrily head off to the internet/county record office to search for him. You find him, and are about to input his name into <insert name of genealogical software here>.
John, son of Thomas and Mary Smith. And, right underneath his baptismal entry, is another John, son of Thomas and Mary Smith. Is it the same one? Was the parish clerk forgetful, and/or seeing double? You turn the page. There's another John, son of Thomas and Mary Smith. This is where negative proof comes in. In order to make sure that you have the right John, you have to prove that all the other Johns were not 'yours' - within a radius of about 15 miles is about right. Or, if you are doing a Surname Study, you have to prove that all these Johns were indeed separate individuals and not the result of the clerk having the flu and not seeing straight.
Or maybe you have found what looks like John, son of Thomas and Mary Smith. But those names are not exactly unusual, so the logic of negative proof is to search all the registers around, to make sure there are no other John-son-of-Thomas-and-Mary-Smiths.
Of course, if your ancestor is called Severus Adolphus Ambrose Smith, you are unlikely to come up against too many duplicates.
© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved
Oh my goodness - what a lot of work - I never really thought about it but I can see why you would have to do this to make sure you were actually tracing the right lineage!!
ReplyDeletePempi
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It does look like a lot of work, but most genealogists are drooling at the thought of all that luverly research they simply HAVE to do *wink*
DeleteIt amazes me how many people accept/guess that a person is a relative without confirming it. My tree is different to so many on Ancestry because I have done the "negative proof' exercise and know that the others have assumed incorrectly! "Near enough is good enough" doesn't work for me :)
ReplyDeleteNor for me. I am so used to 'negative proof' searching, because most of my ancestors came from little rural villages where everybody was related to everybody else and they all called their children John, or James, or Elizabeth...
DeleteInteresting. I hadn't heard that term before, but I sure have had my share of John Smiths!!
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough, I haven't got a single 'John Smith' in my database! Thanks for stopping by.
DeleteThere are so many with our last name, husbands surname, they can't be relatives. Great information!
ReplyDeleteWell, actually, as I said to Sharon above, most of mine WERE related, because they lived in small/tiny towns and villages. *grin*
Deleteno doubt, lots of chance for error in proving lineage. Very interesting
ReplyDeleteGlad you found it interesting. Thanks for stopping by.
DeleteI do find it a lot easier searching for my Cleage ancestors than for my Grahams.
ReplyDeleteFinding Eliza
I can relate! I find it much easier searching for my Murch ancestors than my Brook(e)s or Leys.
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