Lexicon snapshot (2016-03-20)

This lexicon is an auto-generated snapshot of the individual markdown files contained in the main directory of the lexicon exploratory group's github repository. See the lexicon exploratory group's main page for more.

The README for this project contains the following:

Lexicon Exploratory Group

This Lexicon comprises a set terms & concepts that are currently in use in the genealogical domain by various parties, including its software designers, researchers, archivists, transcribers, etc. If there are different terms for the same concept, or different meanings for the same term, then all would be included together with information about where each definition/usage originated.

The requirement for a Lexicon is the result of FHISO including members from quite different disciplines. Although software vocabularies are constantly evolving, the usage of established terms from other disciplines by all parties was not always accurate, and so had the potential to cause confusion.

A "preferred vocabulary" will eventually be needed before FHISO can publish material for external consumption, and ANSI/NISO Z39.19 may be relevant to that end. The interesting thing about a genealogical data standard is that there is no precedent, and hence no obvious place to insert it in the current classification of standards (see ICS). This implicitly means FHISO will need some terms for which there is no standard set or authoritative source.

In the meantime, the goal of the Lexicon is collect together the various terms currently in use, and differentiate them when there are different meanings/nuances, and correlate them when there are different terms for the same concept.

To request an addition to this Lexicon, please contact the editors by email at , preferably indicating a source for its definition/usage if one is known.

Alternative collections of terms that have not been assimilated:

Dick Eastman, Encyclopedia of Genealogy.

FamilySearch, Genealogical Terms.

Lexicon Entries

abstract entity

[STEMMA] An entity with an Abstract=’1’ attribute. Such entities are designed to be used as base entities for inheritance and must not contain any Key references.

abstract

[EE] (academic context) A brief summary or a précis of principal points in an essay or a thesis.

(notetaking context) A condensed version of a record, preserving all important detail in original sequence. An abstract may contain verbatim extracts (quotes) of passages from the record, in which case the material that is copied exactly should be placed in quotation marks inside the abstract.

[Wikipedia 2014-11-03] (computing) At a higher Computer science commonly presents levels (or, less commonly, layers) of abstraction, wherein each level represents a different model of the same information and processes, but uses a system of expression involving a unique set of objects and compositions that apply only to a particular domain. Each relatively abstract, "higher" level builds on a relatively concrete, "lower" level, which tends to provide an increasingly "granular" representation.

accession

[ALIC 2014-11-11] (archival) verb - To transfer physical and legal custody of documentary materials to an archival institution. noun - Materials transferred to an archival institution in a single accessioning action.

accurate

[MGP] A term applied to genealogical sources, information, evidence, and conclusions, and to proof statements, proof summaries, and proof arguments when the GPS shows they portray identities, relationships, and events as they were in the past or are today; compare with prove.

[BCG] (Same as MGP.)

acronym

[EE] A “word” coined by combining the initial letter of each word that identifies an institution, a law, etc. Example: NARA, used as a short form for National Archives and Records Administration. Also see initialism.

address (or postal address)

[Wikipedia-1 2014-11-03] (computing) A particular location inside a computer's memory

[Wikipedia-2 2014-11-03] (computing) An implementation of cross-references inside data. Also termed a 'reference' to distinguish this usage from that above.

[Wikipedia-3 2015-10-26] (geography) A collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used for describing the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along with other identifiers such as house or apartment numbers. Some addresses also contain special codes to aid routing of mail and packages, such as a ZIP code or post code.

[STEMMA] A sequence of terms that direct traditional mail (e.g. letters, packages, etc.) to a particular recipient. Contrast with place and location.

[Gramps] (sec. obj.) The Gramps concept of an Address is a particular location with an associated time frame. Think of it as a mailing address. It is intended to represent where a person lived and when the person lived there. Not to be confused with a place which has a fixed position (its location).

agnatic line

[EE] The male line of descent. See also Y-DNA.

Ahnentafel

[BCG] A genealogical numbering system in which a compiler assigns number 1 to a subject, 2 to the subject's father, 3 to the subject's mother, and continues by using double each person's number for that person's father and double the person's number plus 1 for that person's mother.

[Wikipedia 2015-10-26] Also known as the Eytzinger Method, Sosa Method, and Sosa-Stradonitz Method, allows for the numbering of ancestors beginning with a descendant. This system allows one to derive an ancestor's number without compiling the list and allows one to derive an ancestor's relationship based on their number. The number of a person's father is the double of their own number, and the number of a person's mother is the double of their own, plus one. For instance, if the number of John Smith is 10, his father is 20, and his mother is 21.

aide

[Gramps] (event role) A term to refer to an assistant.

AIIM

[BG] The Association for Information and Image Management, an American nonprofit organization, recognized by the ISO, that helps people and organizations with document/records/content management and business process issues. This is one of the organizations that handles ISO standards potentially related to advanced genealogical data interoperability.

analysis

Ancestral Quest (or AQ)

[AQ 2014-10-05] Ancestral Quest (AQ) is an easy to use family tree software product for the Windows on the market.

anglicisation

[Gramps2] A process of making something English.

annotation

[STEMMA] Text annotation is the addition of meta-data (related textual or other information) to a body of text. See also Mark-up.

ANSEL

[BG] ANSI/NISO Z39.47 — Extended Latin Alphabet Coded Character Set for Bibliographic Use (definition partially from NISO. The formal name for the character set used in the GEDCOM 5.5 standard. It is also known as the American Library Association Character Set. This character set has been superseded by the UTF-8 character set in common practical use.

ANSI

[BG] American National Standards Institute — One of the main ISO-affiliated standards bodies. ANSI oversees a wide variety of standards for the United States. ANSI-governed standards include a plethora of diverse categories such as acoustical equipment, energy distribution, and dairy production.

APG

[APG 2014-10-04] Association of Professional Genealogists. An international organization dedicated to supporting those engaged in the business of genealogy through advocacy, collaboration, education, and the promotion of high ethical standards.

API

[Wikipedia 2014-10-04] Application Programming Interface. A software component in terms of its operations, its inputs and outputs and underlying types. Its main purpose is to define a set of functionalities that are independent of their respective implementation, allowing both definition and implementation to vary without compromising each other.

arrangement

[ALIC 2014-11-11] (archival) The archival process of organizing documentary materials in accordance with archival principles.

artifact (UK: artefact)

[ODO 2014-11-13] An object made by a human being, typically one of cultural or historical interest.

ASCII

[Wikipedia 2014-10-04] American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A character-encoding scheme originally based on the English alphabet that encodes 128 specified characters — the numbers 0-9, the letters a-z and A-Z, some basic punctuation symbols, some control codes that originated with Teletype machines, and a blank space — into the 7-bit binary integers.

assertion

[Wikipedia 2014-11-03] (computing) A predicate (a true–false statement) placed in a program to indicate that the developer thinks that the predicate is always true at that place.

[EE] A claim or statement of "fact".

[GenTech] A programmatic statement of something being true (or untrue) that was derived from a source fragment or the result of prior assertions.

[BG] A claim or a statement of fact. The fact might be the existence of a Person or the truth of a name Attribute; some claims may be justified with evidence. In some Models an Assertion is an Entity, and its computer representations are with Assertion Records. In other Models an Assertion is a Relationship between an Entity with the fact and possibly an Entity with the Evidence. Computer representations based on these models implement Assertions as References between Records.

[ODO 2014-09-28] A confident and forceful statement of fact or belief.

assumption

[EE] A conclusion unsupported by evidence.

attested copy

[EE] (legal context) A copy of an original that has been officially compared to the original and attested to be a true copy—aka examined copy.

attribute

author-date system

authored work

[BCG] A written product that synthesizes information from many prior sources and presents the writer’s own conclusions, interpretations, and thoughts; one of three kinds of genealogical source; compare with record.

[EE-QL17] Hybrid works. Authors of historical narratives will study many sources and synthesize findings. From that study, they reach conclusions and then develop a totally new piece of writing. Because the core information comes from other materials, much of an authored work is derivative. However, an author's conclusions and narrative will (or should) form a new, original, creation.

[MGP] A written product that synthesizes information from many prior sources and presents the writer’s own conclusions, interpretations, and thoughts; one of three kinds of genealogical source; compare with record.

BCG

[BCG] Board for Certification of Genealogists: Since 1964, a non-profit Board that has articulated American standards for genealogical practice and (internationally) conducts rigorous testing of those who seek the credentials Certified Genealogist and Certified Genealogical Lecturer. The most-recent edition of its standards manual is Genealogical Standards (2014). The certification process and portfolio requirements are detailed in the Board’s online publication The BCG Application Guide.

BDM (or BMD)

best evidence

[EE] An original record or records of the best and highest quality that survives. At law and in history research, a derivative source is rarely considered sufficient for documentation when an original or a derivative closer to the original form exists.

BetterGEDCOM

[BetterGEDCOM 2014-10-05] A wiki-based project looking at the replacement of the old GEDCOM Standard with an equivalent, but enhanced, portable data format that could serve as a basis for future development of genealogical technology collaboration standards. See the GOALS page for details on the more recent revisions to the objectives of this project.

beyond reasonable doubt

[EE] A legal standard applied in criminal cases, requiring virtual certainty.

bibliography

[BCG] See source list.

[EE] A list of sources relevant to the subject at hand, citing each source in full. An annotated bibliography is one that discusses the sources in addition to providing full citations. A bibliography typically does not cite individual manuscripts or documents; rather, it cites a collection or series in which the manuscript appears. Also see source list.

[MGP] See source list.

BMD

See BDM.

bride

[Gramps] (event role) A term to refer to the woman at a marriage who will be referred to as wife after the marriage.

broadside

[EE] (historically) A publication that typically consists of a large sheet of paper printed on just one side and intended for wide distribution.

bundle

[STEMMA] A STEMMA document and any local attachments (e.g. images) that it references, bundled together for transmission as a whole.

calendar

[EE] (archival context) A collection guide that contains brief abstracts of items in that collection, arranged in chronological order.

[STEMMA] A mechanism by which dates are reckoned in a given culture. For instance, Gregorian, Julian, etc.

call name

[EE] The name by which a person is or was commonly called. Example: Johann Carl Schmidt might use Carl as his call name, rather than the more common convention of being called by his first name.

celebrant

[Gramps] (event role) A term to refer to a priest at Eucharist.

character set

[Wikipedia 2014-10-04] In computing, a character encoding is used to represent a repertoire of characters by some kind of an encoding system. Depending on the abstraction level and context, corresponding code points and the resulting code space may be regarded as bit patterns, octets, natural numbers, electrical pulses, etc. A character encoding is used in each of computation, data storage, and transmission of textual data. Terms such as character set, character map, codeset, or code page are sometimes used as near synonyms; however, these terms have related but distinct meanings described in the article.

circumstantial case

[EE] (historical context) A reasonable conclusion reached by assembling, analyzing, and explaining—with thorough documentation—numerous pieces of indirect evidence.

circumstantial evidence

[EE] (legal context) Testimony based on deductions drawn from various information that can be documented.

citation element

[STEMMA] A specific datum, or iterated list of data (as with page numbers), that are required to generate a citation. Also see citation template.

[BG2] An identifiable field in a citation that is associated with particular data.

citation mode

[STEMMA] The written or printed mechanism employed to achieve a citation. For instance, a source label, a reference note, or a bibliographic entry.

citation reference

[STEMMA] A reference to a Citation entity with parameters that identify the associated source, source location, or item of information in that source.

citation style

[STEMMA] The style of a written or printed citation, including the order of the parameters, punctuation, and use of italics etc. Examples in the humanities include CMOS, Harvard referencing, MLA. Evidence Explained (EE) is the most common for genealogy.

citation template

[STEMMA] A specification for how citation elements should be processed in order to generate a formatted citation.

[BG2] Specifies Citation Elements, arrangement of same and punctuation necessary to form a citation.

citation

[BCG] A source reference that uses a standard format to describe the source.

[EE] The statement in which one identifies the source of an assertion. Common forms of citations are source list entries (bibliographic entries), reference notes (endnotes or footnotes), and document labels. Verb form (to) cite: the act of identifying one’s source(s) for statements of fact—not to be confused with the words site (as in website) or sight (as in eyesight).

[MGP] A source reference that applies a standard format for describing sources.

[STEMMA] A written or printed identification of a source of information. See citation mode, citation style, and layered citation. In STEMMA, a Citation entity is a generalised description of a source, the location of a source, or the location of information within a source.

claim

[EE] An assertion of “fact” for which no evidence is supplied or else the evidence is insufficient or not yet adjudged.

clear and convincing evidence

[EE] A legal standard interchangeable with beyond reasonable doubt in some regions; elsewhere, an intermediate standard between beyond reasonable doubt and preponderance of the evidence.

clergy

[Gramps] (event role) A term applied to a religious person regardless of religion. For example, a monk or priest. See also: celebrant.

clerk’s copy

[EE] A term typically used for the officially recorded copy of a document. See also record copy.

cohort

[ODO 2014-12-05] A group of people with a common statistical characteristic. Examples may be birth related (see link) or census related (as when ages are rounded up/down to group individuals).

collection

[VA-Gloss 2014-11-15] (archival) Unlike a fonds, material that has been collected by (rather than 'created by') a person or organization rather than created. While one person may donate his collection of postcards, another person may donate a fonds that includes an assortment of postcards received from friends and acquaintances over the years.

compatible evidence

[BCG] Evidence items that agree even if differing in detail (for example, Molly and Mary may be variants of the same name); the opposite of conflicting evidence.

[MGP] Independently created research-question answers that agree even if differing in detail (for example, Molly and Mary may be variants of the same name); the opposite of conflicting evidence.

conclusion person

conclusion-only model (or data model)

[BG] During the Evidence and Conclusion Process, the researcher may (in best practice, should) document the individual steps. When using a Conclusion-only Model, the researcher will document their selected evidence, analyses and conclusions as text. The conclusions are entered into the application's database, superseding any prior inferior conclusion, so that a person's current data represents the latest, overall working hypothesis derived from all the available evidence. Working to a Conclusion-only Model tends to minimise the number of conclusions for an item, e.g. just one Birth event is usually recorded for an individual. Working to an Evidence and Conclusion Model will result in as many Birth Events per real-life person as there have been analyses.

conclusion

[BG] (Dictionary) -- A decision reached by reasoning from given premises. (E&C) -- Information derived by making decisions based on available Information. (Model) -- Any Entity, Attribute or Relationship instance that is created by reasoning and making decisions from available Information. (Computer) -- Any Record or Field of a Record that contains data created by reasoning and making decisions from available Information.

[BCG] An answer to a research question that has passed tests of analysis and correlation but has not been explained or stated in writing and documented; also, a recapitulation of a proof summary or proof argument that states or restates what the summary or argument has proved.

[EE] A decision. To be reliable, it must be based on well-reasoned and thoroughly documented evidence gleaned from sound research.

[MGP] Refers to two products: (a) an answer to a research question that passes tests of analysis and correlation but has not been explained and documented in writing; (b) a recapitulation of a proof summary or proof argument that states or restates the proved conclusion.

[STEMMA] See inference.

confirm

[EE] To test the accuracy of an assertion or conclusion by (a) consulting at least one other source that is both independently created and authoritative; and (b) finding agreement between them.

conflicting evidence

[EE] Relevant pieces of information from disparate sources that contradict each other.

[MGP] Independently created research-question answers that could not all be correct (for example, Molly could not have been born in both Georgia and New York); the opposite of compatible evidence.

controlled vocabulary

[Wikipedia 2014-10-02] Provide a way to organize knowledge for subsequent retrieval by mandating the use of predefined, authorised terms that have been preselected by the designer of the vocabulary.

[STEMMA] A fixed set of predefined termed used for the description or classification of data. Contrast with partially controlled vocabulary. See also vocabulary.

copyright

[EE] The exclusive right to copy, distribute, or license a creative work or to exploit it in any other manner. The term should not be rendered as copywrite. The issue at law is that of rights, not writing per se.

correlate

[EE] To compare and contrast separate items in order to identify conflicts and agreements between them, and to define patterns and relationships. See also correlation

correlation

[BCG] A process of comparing and contrasting genealogical information and evidence to reveal conflicts, parallels, and patterns. See also correlate.

[MGP] A process of comparing and contrasting genealogical information and evidence to reveal conflicts, parallels, and patterns.

cote

[EE] A series or major sub-series classification in the archival hierarchy used by major repositories in France. Drawing from this concept, the term cotation is used to mean “source citation” when working with material from French archives.

credibility

[EE] (1.34-1.39) A characteristic researchers seek in their sources and informants. It is measured by considering such factors as the lack of bias; the swearing to facts under oath; the existence of an original source with firsthand information by someone who participated in the event; the contemporaneousness of the event to the date the record was created; the degree of processing a record has undergone; the record's custodial history; the material characteristics of ink, paper, pen, and printing processes; and the style, vocabulary, and grammatical clarity of an informant's assertions.

[STEMMA] (source setting) The confidence in the information from a source as being unbiased and unembellished. Contrast with quality, reliability, and surety.

CURIE

[Wikipedia 2016-03-05] In computing, a CURIE (or Compact URI) defines a generic, abbreviated syntax for expressing Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). It is an abbreviated URI expressed in a compact syntax, and may be found in both XML and non-XML grammars. A CURIE may be considered a datatype. An example of CURIE syntax: [isbn:0393315703]. The square brackets may be used to prevent ambiguities between CURIEs and regular URIs, yielding so-called safe CURIEs. QNames (the namespace prefixes used in XML) often are used as a CURIE, and may be considered a type of CURIE. CURIEs, as defined by the W3C, will be better defined and may include checking. Unlike QNames, the part of a CURIE after the colon does not need to conform to the rules for XML element names. The first W3C Working Draft of CURIE syntax was released 7 March 2007. The final recommendation was released 16 January 2009.

[W3C 2016-03-05] A generic, abbreviated syntax for expressing URIs. This syntax is intended to be used as a common element by language designers. Target languages include, but are not limited to, XML languages.

custom

[Gramps] This indicates a user defined type, as opposed to types that are predefined in Gramps.

d'Aboville System

[Wikipedia 2015-10-26] Genealogical numvering system using a descending numbering method developed by Jacques d'Aboville in 1940 that is very similar to the Henry System, widely used in France. It can be organized either by generation or not. It differs from the Henry System in that periods are used to separate the generations and no changes in numbering are needed for families with more than nine children. For instance: 1, 1.1, 1.1.1, ... for the first descendant in successive generations.

DAG

See directed acyclic graph.

data model (or model)

[BG] A set of Entities, their Attributes, and their Relationships, used to represent a restricted area of human knowledge. Models are used as specifications for the design of computer databases and file formats whose Records represent instances of the Entities. Models in the genealogical area include the key concepts of Genealogy, e.g., Sources, Evidence, Persons, Events, Names, Dates, Places, and others.

data type

[Wikipedia 2014-10-07] A classification identifying one of various types of data, such as real, integer or Boolean, that determines the possible values for that type; the operations that can be done on values of that type; the meaning of the data; and the way values of that type can be stored.

database

[Wikipedia 2014-10-04] An organized collection of data. The data are typically organized to model aspects of reality in a way that supports processes requiring information. For example, modelling the availability of rooms in hotels in a way that supports finding a hotel with vacancies.

[EE 3rd ed.] (sec. 1.23) A research tool--finding aids or data summaries compiled from a larger body of materials. Databases that offer digital images are a hybrid whose nature we should clarify in our research. [Lexicon editorial note: databases can store more than text, such as images, XML documents, and BLOBs (binary large objects). The established use of the term in discussing sources and citations implies textual extracts compiled into an indexed form (see sec. 2.34). The source form "database with images" is now used to cover this eventuality].

dataset

[STEMMA] A named, self-contained sub-section of a STEMMA document.

date entity

[STEMMA] A computer-readable date as reckoned according to a given calendar. A date value is a specific date encoded in a text string, whereas the date entity also represents granularity, imprecision, and synchronised dates.

date string

[STEMMA] A date as originally written, including transcribed version thereof. A date value or date entity formatted for readability by a user.

date value

[STEMMA] See date entity.

date

[STEMMA2] A measurement of the passing of days. Dates are reckoned according to a calendar.

[Gramps] (sec. obj.) Dates in Gramps are much more complex than just a month, day, and year. Dates are always in a particular calendar, can span a time frame, can be approximate, and have support for many other subtleties specific to genealogy data.

daylight saving time (DST)

[Wikipedia 2014-10-03] The practice of advancing clocks during summer months (that feature more daylight) so that people get up earlier in the morning and experience more daylight in the evening. Typically, users of DST adjust clocks forward one hour near the start of spring and adjust them backward in the autumn.

[STEMMA2] The annual adjustment of clocks in a given TZ to increase the daylight hours in the evening and so reduce those in the morning.

DBMS

[Wikipedia 2014-10-04] Database Management Systems. Specially designed software applications that interact with the user, other applications, and the database itself to capture and analyze data. A general-purpose DBMS is a software system designed to allow the definition, creation, querying, update, and administration of databases. Well-known DBMSs include MySQL, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, SAP and IBM DB2. A database is not generally portable across different DBMSs, but different DBMSs can interoperate by using standards such as SQL and ODBC or JDBC to allow a single application to work with more than one DBMS. DBMSs systems are often classified according to the database model that they support; the most popular database systems since the 1980s have all supported the relational model as represented by the SQL language.

deduction

[EE] A conclusion inferred from aggregated clues.

deep semantics

[STEMMA] The nature of a datum (e.g. a date reference, or a person reference) including a conclusion identifying the target (e.g. the actual date, or the actual person). Contrast with shallow semantics.

definite source

[STEMMA] Identification of a specific source that was accessed or consulted during research. Contrast with indefinite source. Analogous to the definite article in grammar.

"definitive source"

[EE] A false concept based on the presumption that a certain source is always reliable or represents the "final word" on an issue.

derivative record

[BCG] A record created from a prior record by (a) transcribing the prior record or part of it by hand or keyboard or by optical-character-recognition, speech-to-text, or other technology, (b) abstracting information from it, (c) translating it from one language to another, or (d) reproducing it with alterations; also, a work created to expand accessibility to the prior record’s information, or to some part of it; the opposite of original record and one of three kinds of genealogical source; see record.

[MGP] A record created from a prior record by (1) transcribing the prior record or part of it by hand, keyboard, or optical-character-recognition, speech-to-text, or other technology, (2) abstracting information from it, (3) translating it from one language to another, or (4) reproducing it with alterations; a work created to expand accessibility to the prior record’s information, or to some part of it; the opposite of original record and one of three kinds of genealogical source; see record. See also derivative source.

derivative source

[EE] Material produced by copying an original document or manipulating its content. Abstracts, compendiums, compilations, databases, extracts, transcripts, and translations are all derivatives—as are authored works such as histories, genealogies, and other monographs that are based on research in a variety of sources.

description

[ALIC 2014-11-11] (archival) The process of establishing intellectual control over holdings of an archival institution through preparation of finding aids.

diplomatic transcription

[LexiconSE 2015-09-10] A rendering in machine-produced form (typing or typeset) of the entire content of a manuscript, marked proof, or annotated text, including cancellations and additions.

[Wikipedia 2015-09-15] A diplomatic transcription attempts to represent by means of a system of editorial signs all features of a manuscript original. The term semi-diplomatic is used for an edition or transcription that seeks to reproduce only some of these features of the original.

direct evidence

[BCG] An information item that seems to address a research question and answer it by itself; the opposite of indirect evidence and one of three categories of genealogical evidence.

[EE] Relevant information that states an answer to a specific research question or appears to solve a research problem all by itself. See also indirect evidence.

[MGP] An information item that by itself answers a research question; the opposite of indirect evidence and one of three categories of genealogical evidence.

directed acyclic graph (DAG)

[Wikipedia 2014-09-29] A directed graph (i.e. where each node connection has a direction) that involves no loops, or cycles. Often used to model entities that have a temporal or causal relationship to each other.

discursive note

[EE] separate discussions of issues [within a reference note] that should be woven into the text; or discussions of peripheral matters that do not directly relate to our subject. (EE 2.7)

[MGP] Reference notes containing discussion, usually along with one or more citations; see reference note.

[STEMMA] Commentary or notes that digress from the main subject. Usually presented using footnotes or endnotes.

DNA

[EE] The initialism for deoxyribonucleic acid, the substance containing the genetic instructions for the development and functioning of organisms; used as an adjunct to conventional historical research to prove identity and kinships. See also mitochondrial DNA and Y-DNA.

document label

document type definition (DTD)

[Wikipedia 2014-10-03] A set of markup declarations that define a document type for an SGML-family markup language (SGML, XML, HTML).

document

[BCG] Verb: The processes of recording and showing the sources of concepts, evidence, and words that an author or compiler has used.

[EE] Verb: to supply reliable evidence in support of a claim. Noun: (legal context) any piece of writing submitted into evidence; (historical context), a piece of writing, usually official, that has evidentiary merit.

[MGP] Verb: The processes of recording and showing the sources of concepts, evidence, and words that an author or compiler has used.

[Wikipedia 2014-11-04] (computing) Any electronic media content (other than computer programs or system files) that are intended to be used in either an electronic form or as printed output.

[STEMMA] Noun: A complete STEMMA file, or its representation in memory or in a communications network. This definition is in keeping with the XML interpretation, although technically distinct.

documentation

[BCG] The sources supporting genealogical conclusions and proof, citations to those sources, the genealogist’s comments about them, and formatting showing the connections between the sources and specific statements and conclusions. See also document.

[MGP] The sources supporting genealogical conclusions and proof, citations to those sources, the genealogist’s comments about them, and formatting showing the connections between the sources and specific statements and conclusions.

DOI

[BG] Digital Object Identifier, managed by the International DOI Foundation. The DOI System is for identifying objects in the digital environment. DOI names are assigned to any entity for use on digital networks. They are used to provide current information, including where they (or information about them) can be found on the Internet. Information about an object may change over time, including where to find it, but its DOI name will not change. NB: The identifier is digital but the objects may not be. It closely follows the CIDOC Ontology and would be capable of identifying physical objects, Persons, Places, and Events.

double dating

See dual dating and synchronized dates.

dower

[EE] The portion of a husband’s possessions that the law allots to his wife.

dowry

[EE] (historically) The money, goods, etc., brought by a wife to her husband in marriage, usually as a payment by the bride’s family; sometimes, a donation made by the husband to the bridal family or to the bride for her separate use.

drill down

[STEMMA] Originally a BI process where selecting a summarised datum or a hierarchical field — usually with a click in a GUI tool — revealed the underlying data from which it was derived. The term was used routinely during the early 1990s when a new breed of data-driven OLAP product began to emerge. Used in STEMMA to describe the process of “opening” a conclusion to see the supporting evidence (including any proof argument), the raw information that was used as evidence, and eventually to the underlying source.

DST

See daylight saving time.

DTD

See document type definition.

dual dating

Dublin Core

[Wikipedia 2016-03-04] A small set of vocabulary terms that can be used to describe web resources (video, images, web pages, etc.), as well as physical resources such as books or CDs, and objects like artworks. The full set of Dublin Core metadata terms can be found on the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) website. The original set of 15 classic metadata terms, known as the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, are endorsed in the following standards documents: IETF RFC 5013, ISO Standard 15836-2009, NISO Standard Z39.85. Qualified Dublin Core was an initiative that was deprecated in 2012.

duplicate original

[EE] A copy officially made at the same time as the official "original." Examples: The grantor's and grantee's copies of a deed, simultaneously made; or the multiple copies of a census schedule that enumerators were required to make in certain years.

E&C

[BG] Evidence and Conclusion.

EAV

[Wikipedia 2014-10-12] Entity-Attribute-Value. A data-model description of entities where the number of attributes (properties, parameters) that can be used to describe them is potentially vast, but the number that will actually apply to a given entity is relatively modest.

edge case

[Wikipedia 2014-10-01] A problem or situation that occurs only at an extreme (maximum or minimum) operating parameter. This may be expected or unexpected.

edition

[EE] The version or form in which a publication is presented. It may be identified as an ordinal (e.g., first edition), as a descriptive term (e.g., revised edition, image edition), or a media format (e.g., CD-ROM edition, microfilm edition).

element

[STEMMA] A logical part of a STEMMA document. A Document is effectively a tree of nested elements. This definition is in keeping with the XML interpretation, although technically distinct.

[Wikipedia 2014-10-23] (XML context) A logical document component which either begins with a start-tag and ends with a matching end-tag or consists only of an empty-element tag. The characters between the start- and end-tags, if any, are the element's content, and may contain markup, including other elements, which are called child elements. An example of an element is <Greeting>Hello, world.</Greeting> (see hello world). Another is <line-break />.

emancipation

[EE] The act by which one who is under the power or control of another is set free; typically used with reference to the manumission of slaves or the freeing of minors from the disabilities of minority.

endnote

[BCG] A reference note placed at the end of an article, book, report, Web publication, or other genealogical work to document a statement within the work; see reference note; compare with footnote.

[EE] A reference note that is placed at the end of an essay, chapter, book, or other piece of writing.

[MGP] A reference note placed at the end of an article, book, report, Web publication, or other genealogical work to document a statement within the work; see reference note; compare with footnote.

[STEMMA] See footnote.

entity-relationship model (ER)

[Wikipedia 2014-10-24] A data model for describing the data or information aspects of a business domain or its process requirements, in an abstract way that lends itself to ultimately being implemented in a database such as a relational database. The main components of ER models are entities (things) and the relationships that can exist among them, and databases.

entity

[Wikipedia-1 2014-11-03] (computing) A way of representing a non-ASCII character using ASCII.

[Wikipedia-2 2014-11-03] (computing) Various small, usually independent, components in some software architectures.

[STEMMA] A data-model representation of a micro-history item. These are top-level elements in a dataset and usually have a key by which they can be referenced. See Person, Animal, Place, Event, Group, Citation, Resource, Source. and Matrix. See also abstract entity.

[BG] An Entity is a component of a Data Model. It represents and abstracts a set of objects from the real world. An Entity is composed of Attributes that define its structure; Attributes are abstractions of properties or characteristics of the real objects. An Entity may be in Relationships with other Entities in the Model. When a Model is represented on a computer, a Record is usually defined for each Entity, with Fields that correspond to the Attributes.

ephemera

[ODO 2014-11-13] Things that exist or are used or enjoyed for only a short time; collectable items that were originally expected to have only short-term usefulness or popularity.

epoch

[Wikipedia 2014-10-22] In the fields of chronology and periodization, an epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular era. The "epoch" then serves as a reference point from which time is measured. Time measurement units are counted from the epoch so that the date and time of events can be specified unambiguously.

[STEMMA2] A fixed point in time, independent of any particular calendar or clock. Examples might be 1970-01-01T00:00:00Z (defined via UTC) or the Smithsonian base date.

ER

See Entity-Relationship Model.

estray book

[EE] A register in which a civil official recorded reports of stray animals taken up by citizens.

event constraint

[STEMMA] A relational connection between two event entities that orders them and places limits on their dates, even when those dates may not be fully determined.

event role

[Gramps] The role a person plays in an event. In Gramps an event can be linked to as many people as desired. Each person will play a different role. Event role captures this. Some common roles are predefined, others the user can add by just typing in the appropriate role.

event type

[Gramps] The general denominator an event belongs to. For instance, a Christian, civil, or Tibetan marriages are all denoted by the event type marriage. See events in Gramps for an overview.

event

[ODO 2014-10-02] A thing that happens or takes place, especially one of importance.

[STEMMA] In everyday life, an event is something that happened at a particular place and time, or over a span of time. The Event entity, though, represents a date, or range of dates, for which source information exists. See simple Event, protracted Event, and hierarchical Event.

[Gramps] A defining moment in a person's life. See events for the use in genealogy, for predefined events in Gramps and suggested naming for common events.

[BG] An Event is something that happens in the real world at one or more places and at a time or over a period of time. Events of genealogical significance usually involve Persons who often play specific roles with respect to the Event. Some Events, such as birth or marriage, establish Relationships between Persons. Some genealogical Models include Events as an Entity, some include them as Attributes of the Person or other Entities, and some include them both ways. Analogous to Models, the computer representations of Events can be as separate Records or as Field within Records.

[GEDCOM-X 2014-10-23] An occurrence that happened at a specific time or period of time, often at a specific place or set of places. Genealogically relevant events are often described by referencing the persons that played a role in that event. Hence events often refer to persons and might infer relationships, but events are described independently of those persons and relationships. See also fact.

eventa

[BetterGEDCOM 2014-10-02] A description of some event from one specific information source, and with no interpretation; named in acknowledgement of the related persona concept.

Evidence Analysis Process Map

[EE], [EE-QL17], [WHE-NGSQ], [BCG], and [MGP]. An analytical aid to the analysis and evaluation of research findings. Its schemata separates a source from both the information contained within the source and the evidence that one draws from the information. Developed by Elizabeth Shown Mills for the National Genealogical Society, it is also followed by BCG and MGP.

evidence and conclusion model

[BG] Linked to the Evidence and Conclusion Process, but not the same thing. During the Evidence and Conclusion Process, the researcher may (in best practice, should) document the individual steps. Many people will document their selected evidence, analyses and conclusions as text. When using an Evidence and Conclusion Model, the evidence and conclusions (at least) are formally documented in machine readable form. Specifically, a Source record normally contains details of the source's contents as free-format text or as an image. When working to an Evidence and Conclusion Model, someone's name and age (e.g.) are extracted from that text or image and entered into name and age data items unique to that piece of evidence. This is the Evidence part.

The output from the analysis stage is similarly documented in data items unique to that analysis. This output is identical in format to that from a Conclusion-only Model. Working to a Conclusion-only Model tends to minimise the number of conclusions for an item, e.g. just one Birth event is usually recorded for an individual. Working to an Evidence and Conclusion Model will result in as many Birth Events per real-life person as there have been analyses. As a result, working to an Evidence and Conclusion Model will show more intermediate steps than otherwise.

evidence and conclusion process

[BG] This process is intended to describe the steps genealogical researchers go through. It may be carried out formally, invoking the Genealogical Proof Standard, for instance, or informally. In summary, it involves setting a research objective; looking for evidence to support or deny the objective; analysing the evidence and coming to a stated conclusion. Throughout the process, the researcher should review the current results and may loop back to re-start at a previous step — even altering the objective if it appears valueless.

evidence books

[EE] Record books maintained by some courts in which clerks have transcribed the evidence presented in cases before that court.

evidence person

See also Persona, and conclusion person.

[BG] Created when working to an Evidence and Conclusion Model. This represents the evidence going into an analysis stage. An Evidence Person is created in the same format as a real life person would be under the Conclusion-only Model but contains only the data known at that time and will not be updated later. The lowest level of Evidence Person contains data extracted from a single source record.

evidence

[BCG] A research question’s tentative answer, which may be right or wrong, complete or incomplete, or vague or specific; may be direct, indirect, or negative.

[EE] Information that is relevant to the problem. Common forms used in historical analysis include best evidence, direct evidence, indirect evidence, and negative evidence. In a legal context, circumstantial evidence is also common.

[MGP] A research question’s tentative answer, which may be right or wrong, complete or incomplete, or vague or specific; may be direct, indirect, or negative.

[STEMMA] Information that either supports or contradicts a statement or conjecture.

[BG] (dictionary) -- the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid; information given personally, drawn from a document, or in the form of material objects, tending or used to establish facts; signs; indications. (E&C Process) -- Information upon which conclusions may be based. (Model) -- Any Entity, Attribute or Relationship instance that is wholly created from the available actual Evidence. (Computer) -- Any Record or Field of a Record that contains data wholly derived from the available actual Evidence.

examined copy

[EE] See attested copy.

exhaustive search

[BCG] Research that examines all sources, an impossible task; see reasonably exhaustive search.

[MGP] Research that examines all sources, an impossible task; see reasonably exhaustive search.

exhibition copy

[EE] (census context) The copy that, in earlier times, was locally posted in public places or made available to the public for examination.

extract

[EE] A portion of text quoted verbatim out of a record and enclosed in quotation marks. An extract is more precise than an abstract. Unlike a transcript, it does not represent the complete record.

facsimile

[BCG] An image showing a source with no sign of cropping, blurring, or other alteration, including color or shading changes that mask information; an exact copy; see image.

[EE] An exact copy; a term usually used to describe an image copy.

[MGP] An image showing a source with no sign of cropping, blurring, or other alteration; an exact copy; see image.

fact

See also attribute, property, and PFACT.

[ODO 2013-12-24) A thing that is known or proved to be true.

[EE] A presumed reality—an event, circumstance, or other detail that is considered to have happened or to be true. In historical research, it is difficult to establish actual truths; therefore, the validity of any stated “fact” rests upon the quality of the evidence presented to support it.

[BG] An item of information. In a Model the Attribute Values of Entity instances are Facts, and the existence of the Entity instances themselves are Facts. In computer representations Records and Fields are Facts. Basically everything is a Fact, so the term is not useful in distinguishing any one thing from any other.

[GEDCOM-X 2014-10-23] A data item that is presumed to be true about a specific subject, such as a person or relationship. A time or place is often, but not always, applicable to a fact. Facts do not exist outside the scope of the subject to which they apply. See also event.

factoid

[EE] A "fact" that is fictitious or unsubstantiated but repeatedly asserted to promote its acceptance.

"fair copy"

[EE] A term used by the U.S. Bureau of the Census to describe the duplicate originals enumerators were asked to submit. Practically speaking, it meant a "reasonably accurate" copy.

fair use principle

[EE] An adjunct of copyright law, defining conditions under which one may use or reuse portions of copyrighted material.

family history

[STEMMA] A type of micro-history concerned with people’s lives within a family context. See genealogy.

family name

[EE] A hereditary surname used by successive generations of a family.

family

[Wikipedia 2014-10-03] A group of people affiliated by consanguinity (by recognized birth), affinity (by marriage), or co-residence/shared consumption (see Nurture kinship).

[Gramps] (prim. obj) A Family is a core concept in Gramps. It depicts the basic relations between people. Commonly this will contain a father, a mother and some children, however, it can also contain only parts of this (e.g. two brothers, a mother and child). People can be part of several families (adoption, remarried, etc.).

(event role) An event can be coupled to a family, denoting that the entire family was involved in the event. Typically the Marriage event will be coupled to a family with event role family.

FamilySearch Certified

[BG] A term devised by FamilySearch to denote "Certified Products and Services are programs, services, and utilities that are compatible with FamilySearch and conform to FamilySearch standards and systems." (See the current list at the FamilySearch Developers Network - Certified Products and Services).

FamilySearch Developers Network

[BG] A site to provide information and resources for software programmers who support the FamilySearch Platform. (See FamilySearch Developers Network).

FamilySearch wiki

[BG] A central location for information about archives, libraries, government organizations that house historical records; research methodology; self-described as "free family history research advice for the community by the community." (See FamilySearch Research Wiki).

FamilySearch

[BG] The genealogy website of the LDS Church with resources for genealogists regardless of their religious orientation.

feme covert

[EE] A married woman, whose legal rights are subsumed into those of her husband.

feme sole

[EE] Historically, a single woman, a widow, an abandoned wife, or a married woman authorized by law to manage her own financial affairs.

FGS

[BG] Federation of Genealogical Societies A national society based in the United States offering support to member societies in organization and operation of viable local societies. Each year an annual multi-day conference is held in a different city, providing instruction to individuals and societies on a broad variety of family history topics.

FHL

[EE] The common initialism used for the Family History Library system centered in Salt Lake City, Utah.

field

[BG] In computing a named item that makes up a part of Record; the content of the item is data that represents the value of a fact or item of information.

first reference note

[BCG] See long-form citation.

[EE] The first citation for a particular source, at which time the source is cited in full, with any descriptive detail or discussion needed for identification and analysis. See also subsequent (or short) reference note.

[MGP] See long-form citation.

FOAF

[Wikipedia 2015-01-17] Acronym for 'Friend of a friend'. A machine-readable ontology describing persons, their activities and their relations to other people and objects. FOAF allows groups of people to describe social networks without the need for a centralised database. It is a descriptive vocabulary expressed using the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL).

folio

[EE] A large sheet of paper folded to make leaves or pages for a book—usually four pages or multiples of four.

fonds

[ICA 2014-11-15] (archival) The whole of the records, regardless of form or medium, organically created and/or accumulated and used by a particular person, family, or corporate body in the course of that creator's activities and functions.

[VA-Gloss 2014-11-15] (archival) All the records created by a person or organization (as opposed to 'collected by' - see Collection during the course of their existence. We rarely have a whole fonds in our custody, but (by convention) we describe the records as if we did. Other archives may describe the same thing as a "collection". Pronounced in the French manner with a silent "d" and "s".

footnote

[BCG] A reference note appearing at the bottom of a page to document a statement on that page; see reference note; compare with endnote.

[EE] A reference note placed at the bottom or foot of the page on which its corresponding "fact" appears.

[MGP] A reference note appearing at the bottom of a page to document a statement on that page; see reference note; compare with endnote.

[STEMMA] Paragraph of text appearing at the end of a page (footnote) or chapter, volume, or whole text (endnote). General mechanism for adding commentary, notes, or source references linked to a location in the main text.

fraktur

[EE] Highly detailed calligraphy and motifs used to illustrate baptism and marriage certificates in Pennsylvania-German culture. The term is also more generally used for the certificates themselves.

free papers

[EE] A formal document given to slaves at the time of their manumission, to be carried on their person as proof of their free status; or such a record created at a later date after a free person has provided authorities with oral or other written evidence of that freedom.

FTM

[BG] Family Tree Maker - A Genealogy Program.

full reference note

[MGP] See long-form citation.

GEDCOM

[EE] An acronym used for the GEnealogy Data COMmunications file format developed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to allow the exchange of genealogical databases between various data-management programs.

[BG] (from FamilySearch Developer Network, the body that originally developed GEDCOM): "GEDCOM stands for GEnealogical Data COMmunications and is a file format specification that allows different genealogical software programs to share data with each other. It was developed by the Family and Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to provide a flexible, uniform format for exchanging computerized genealogical data. This standard is supported by FamilySearch, by the family history products that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints produces, as well as by the vendors of most of the major genealogical software products." NB: this content is no longer visible at the cited link.

Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS)

[BCG] The genealogy field's standard for determining whether a conclusion is acceptable or not.

[BCG 2014-11-14] Under this standard, genealogical conclusions are expected to demonstrate five criteria: 1. Reasonably exhaustive research; 2. Complete and accurate citation of sources; 3. Analysis and correlation of the collected information; 4. A resolution of conflicting evidence; 5. A soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion.

[EE] Section 1.5: The standard of proof set by genealogy’s scholars and professionals, which poses five conditions that a valid conclusion must meet: thorough research; complete and accurate citation of sources; skilled analysis and correlation of data; resolution of any conflicts in the evidence; a soundly reasoned, written conclusion that details all the evidence, analyses, and documentation—i.e., a proof argument.

[MGP] The genealogy field’s standard for differentiating acceptable from unacceptable conclusions.

genealogy

[ODO 2014-04-28] A line of descent traced continuously from an ancestor. The study and tracing of lines of descent.

[BCG] The study of families in genetic and historical context; the study of communities, in which kinship networks weave the fabric of economic, political, and social life; the study of family structures and the changing roles of men, women, and children in diverse cultures; biography, reconstructing each human life across place and time; the story of who we are and how we came to be, as individuals and societies.

[Websters 2014-04-28] The study of family history. The history of a particular family showing how the different members of the family are related to each other.

[EE] The study of families in genetic and historical context; the study of communities in which kinship networks weave the fabric of economic, political, and social life; the study of family structures and the changing roles of men, women, and children in diverse cultures; the study of biography, reconstructing individual human lives and placing them into family context across place and time—otherwise, the story of who we are and how we came to be as individuals and societies.

[MGP] A research field concerned primarily with accurately reconstructing forgotten or unknown identities and familial relationships in the past and present, typically covering more than one generation and including adoptive, biological, extramarital, marital, and other kinds of familial relationships; a narrative family history covering descendants of an ancestral couple.

[STEMMA] In its literal sense, the study of biological lineage. In its more generic usage, any type of research involving families. See family history.

[BCG 2014-10-04] The study of families in genetic and historical context. It is the study of communities in which kinship networks weave the fabric of economic, political and social life. It is the study of family structures, and the changing roles of men, women, and children in diverse cultures. It is biography, reconstructing each human life across place and time. Genealogy is the story of who we are and how we came to be, as individuals and societies.

geocode

georeference

GPS

[MGP] See Genealogical Proof Standard.

[Wikipedia 2014-10-07] Global Positioning System is a space-based satellite navigation system that provides location and time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. The system provides critical capabilities to military, civil and commercial users around the world. It is maintained by the United States government and is freely accessible to anyone with a GPS receiver.

Gramps

[Gramps 2014-10-04] Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Programming System. Gramps is a free software project and community. We strive to produce a genealogy program that is both intuitive for hobbyists and feature-complete for professional genealogists. It is a community project, created, developed and governed by genealogists.

granularity

[STEMMA] The date unit or concept that a date value is representing, e.g. a day, a month, a decade, or a century. This is similar to a ‘period’ in the GEDCOM model. Contrast with imprecision.

groom

[Gramps] (event role) A term to refer to the man at a marriage who will be referred to as husband after the marriage.

GROS

[EE] An acronym used for the General Register Office for Scotland, the office responsible for the registration of adoptions, births, civil partnerships, deaths, divorces, and marriages.

group

[STEMMA] A STEMMA entity representing an organised real-world entity, such as a regiment, organisation, or school/class. Individual subject entities — currently only Persons and Animals — may be associated with a Group over given spans of time. It may, therefore, be used to model different interpretations of a family unit.

headline style

[MGP] Capitalization of all words in a group of words except articles, conjunctions, prepositions, and words that are not the group’s first or last word [for exceptions, see The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 448–49)]; the form of capitalization used for formal titles in source citations; compare with sentence style.

hearsay

[EE] Typically oral information that is secondhand (secondary), third hand (tertiary), or otherwise not original; it may be handed down through the generations or passed around among contemporaries.

hierarchical data model

[Wikipedia 2014-10-05] A data model in which the data is organized into a tree-like structure. The data is stored as records which are connected to one another through links. A record is a collection of fields, with each field containing only one value. The entity type of a record defines which fields the record contains. A record in the hierarchical database model corresponds to a row (or tuple) in the relational database model and an entity type corresponds to a table (or relation).

hierarchical event

[STEMMA] A protracted Event which is the parent of one or more other Events. This mechanism allows the finer structure of a protracted Event to be described.

hypothesis

[BCG] Evidence or potential conclusions subjected to tests of accuracy; see evidence and conclusion.

[EE] A proposition based upon an analysis of evidence at hand; not a conclusion but a premise to focus research more narrowly in an effort to prove or disprove a point.

[EE-QL16] A variable point between speculation and understanding. Merriam-Webster defines “hypothesis” in two ways: an assumption or concession made for the sake of argument [and] taken as the ground for action; and a tentative assumption made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences.

Hypotheses allow us to evaluate our level of understanding. When the evidence seems to point toward a logical conclusion ... we reevaluate our evidence, trying to disprove our interpretation as intensely as we have tried to prove it. In this process, we go back to the information we have gleaned. We often go back to our sources, as well. We put ourselves into the mental framework of our critics and pick apart our own reasoning. We argue with each piece of information we have found and each deduction we have made. We try to link details in different combinations, in an effort to see them in a different light. We study the work of others who write on similar subjects, applying their perspectives to our conundrum. Often this process suggests new research paths to pursue and new sources to consult. Not until we feel that our conclusion can withstand all critical analyses, should we propose our interpretation as likely proof.

[MGP] Evidence or a potential conclusion subjected to tests of accuracy; see evidence and conclusion.

ibid

[EE] An abbreviation for ibidem, meaning "in the same place (source) as the one cited immediately above." Used in reference notes, ibid. applies only when the preceding reference note cites just one source.

identity

[BCG] Characteristics and contexts distinguishing one person from all other people throughout history.

[EE] (Section 1.20) It takes far more than a name to create an identity. Age, economic and social status, haunts and habits, land ownership (and the recorded legal description of that property), literacy, occupation, organizational affiliations, religion—and, above all, associates—are essential elements of each person’s identity.

[MGP] Characteristics and contexts distinguishing one person from all other people throughout history.

IETF

[BG] Internet Engineering Task Force — An international standards body not affiliated with ISO which governs most technical standards for the internet. IETF takes a developmental approach to standards rather than the codified approach preferred by the ISO and thus remains a more flexible, nimble body more suited to the needs of internet-based technologies.

image copy

[EE] A digital, film, or photo image. In historical research, it is typically treated as an original, so long as no evidence suggests that the image may have been altered.

image

[MGP] A film, photocopy, photograph, scan, video, or other replication of a physical source; compare with facsimile.

imprecision

[STEMMA] The uncertainty or range of possibilities for a date specification. This is a different concept to the date unit being referenced. This is similar to a ‘range’ in the GEDCOM model. Contrast with granularity.

INCITS

[BG] InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards — The primary U.S. focus of standardization in the field of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), encompassing storage, processing, transfer, display, management, organization, and retrieval of information.

indefinite source

[STEMMA] A generic identification of a source that may be available from many different places. Contrast with definite source. Analogous to the indefinite article in grammar.

independent information items

[BCG] Sources or information items that have unrelated origins, thus reinforcing rather than duplicating each other; sometimes called "independent sources"; the opposite of related information.

independent source(s)

[EE] An original source; one that did not take its information from any other. Researchers try to verify information by finding other independent (original) sources that report the same.

[MGP] Sources or information items with unrelated origins that reinforce rather than duplicate each other; the opposite of related sources.

indeterminable

[BCG] See undetermined.

[MGP] Refers to information items that cannot be classified as primary or secondary, because either the informant is unknown or the genealogist cannot deduce how an identified informant obtained the information.

indirect evidence

[BCG] Information items that seem to address and answer a research question only when combined; the opposite of direct evidence and one of three categories of genealogical evidence.

[EE] Relevant information that does not answer the research question all by itself. Rather, it has to be combined with other information to arrive at an answer to the research question.

[MGP] Two or more information items that answer a research question only when combined; the opposite of direct evidence and one of three categories of genealogical evidence.

indirect source

[EE] A term some writing guides use for the source from which a source obtained its information. Many careful researchers prefer “source of the source” for this concept. Because source and evidence are terms frequently confused, Evidence Explained follows the school that uses the term indirect only with the word evidence and not with the term source.

inference

[EE] A “fact” deduced from information that implies something it does not state outright.

[STEMMA] A reasoned judgment or decision based on evidence derived from information obtained from sources. The judgement includes both the reasoning and any associated conclusion.

informant

[BCG] A person who provided one or more information items; see information

[MGP] Someone who provided one or more information items; see information

information

[Wikipedia-1 2014-11-03] (computing) Processed data; data with semantics attached.

[Wikipedia-2 2014-11-03] (computing) A prefix applied to many topics to suggest their digital character: information technology, information systems, information standards, etc.

[Wikipedia-3 2014-11-03] (computing) The underlying material to be expressed in data structures, bit streams, etc.

[EE] A statement offered by a source. Information exists in two basic weights, primary information and secondary information.

[MGP] Statements based on experience, fabrication, hearsay, intuition, observation, reading, research, or some other means; a source’s surface content, including its physical characteristics; what we see or hear when we examine a source, not what we interpret; may be primary, secondary, or indeterminable (of unknown origin).

[STEMMA] Semantic data obtained from a source.

inheritance

[Wikipedia-1 2014-11-04] The practice of passing on property, titles, debts, rights and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies, and the rules of inheritance differ between societies and have changed over time

[Wikipedia-2 2014-11-04] (computing) In object-oriented programming (OOP), inheritance is when an object or class is based on another object or class, using the same implementation (inheriting from a class) or specifying implementation to maintain the same behavior (realizing an interface; inheriting behavior). It is a mechanism for code reuse and to allow independent extensions of the original software via public classes and interfaces. The relationships of objects or classes through inheritance give rise to a hierarchy.

[STEMMA] A mechanism that allows an entity to share parts of the definition of a parent entity. In STEMMA, this currently occurs for Events, Citations, and Resources.

initialism

[EE] A coined “word” created by combining the initial letter(s) of several words to identify a thing, place, or concept. Initialisms are written in all capital letters (or, by the canons of topography, in small capital letters), without periods between letters. Unlike acronyms, when an initialism is spoken, individual letters are pronounced. Examples: FHL for the Family History Library; or OAH for the Organization of American Historians.

interlinear notes

[Ed. Notes 2014-10-05] Annotative notes made between lines of text. These may be sublinear (below) or supralinear (above). See also intralinear notes.

interpretation

[EE-QL16] (Merriam-Webster) interpret: to explain or tell the meaning of or present in understandable terms; to perform … in a way that conveys one’s understanding of the creator’s ideas. The key concept in both definitions of “interpret” is understanding. This means a thorough knowledge of our subject and the context of the place and time. As students of history, we arrive at that kind of knowledge and understanding, by working our way through all those building blocks of proof.

intralinear notes

[Ed. Notes 2014-10-05] Annotative notes made within a line of text. See also interlinear notes.

IRI

[Wikipedia 2016-03-05] Defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in 2005 as a new internet standard to extend upon the existing uniform resource identifier (URI) scheme. The new standard was published in RFC 3987. While URIs are limited to a subset of the ASCII character set, IRIs may contain characters from the Universal Character Set (Unicode/ISO 10646), including Chinese or Japanese kanji, Korean, Cyrillic characters, and so forth. It is defined by RFC 3987. IRI extend upon URIs by using the Universal Character Set whereas URIs were limited to the ASCII with far fewer characters. IRIs may be represented by a sequence of octets but by definition is defined as a sequence of characters because IRIs can be spoken or written by hand.

ISO

[BG] International Organization for Standardization —The worldwide governing body for standards for just about everything.

LAC

[EE] The initialism used for the Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

Latinization (UK: Latinisation)

See Romanization.

layered citation

[EE-QL19] A form of citation needed when a source has been processed through multiple media, thereby complicating its description and statement of provenance; separate layers identify the imaged record (when an image is provided), the film or digital publication that provides the image or extracted data, the provider's own identification of its source, and (when needed) comments on the source's quality or other relevant issues.

[STEMMA] A form of citation used to describe the different derivative states of a consulted source through to its original form; usually separated by semicolons. May also include analytical notes.

LDS Church (or LDS)

[BG] Abbreviation for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known in genealogy circles for its microfilming and digitization projects, the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, some 4,500+ Family History Centers throughout the world, and its website FamilySearch offering a multitude of resources including free indexes and scanned images of original documents from over a hundred countries.

legajo

[EE] A term used in Spanish archival nomenclature to designate a numbered bundle of records.

letterpress copy book

[EE] A volume of correspondence, created by the letterpress process in which a writer would insert a freshly inked letter into a bound volume of blank tissue pages and, after moistening the adjacent tissue, fasten the closed book with its attached screws; when the book was reopened, the transferred ink could then be read through the tissue onto which it had been imposed.

LFT

[BG] Legacy Family Tree - A genealogy management software program for the Windows platform.

liber

[EE] The Latin term for book. In various jurisdictions, the term has been used for local civil records. Example: a deed register might be referred to as "Deeds, Liber 4."

Lifelines

[BG] Lifelines - An open source genealogy management software program originally developed on Unix, but available on many operating systems, such as Linux, Mac OSX and Windows. It has a very powerful reporting language.

location

[STEMMA] A fixed geographical point or area, usually referenced by its coordinates. Contrast with place and address.

long-form citation

maiden name

[EE] Strictly speaking, the surname of a married female’s birth family; more generally, the surname used by a female prior to marriage.

manuscript

[EE] A piece of writing in its native, unpublished state. Derived from the Latin meaning written by hand, the term is also applied in modern times to unpublished typescripts.

marginalia

[Wikipedia 2014-10-05] Scribbles, comments and illuminations in the margins of a book.

markup (UK: mark-up)

[Wikipedia 2014-10-03] A (document) Markup language is a modern system for annotating a document in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from the text. The idea and terminology evolved from the "marking up" of paper manuscripts, i.e. the revision instructions by editors, traditionally written with a blue pencil on authors' manuscripts. In digital media this "blue pencil instruction text" was replaced by tags, that is, instructions are expressed directly by tags or "instruction text encapsulated by tags”.

[STEMMA] The scheme by which text annotation is represented or encoded.

marriage bann

[EE] A legal or ecclesiastical announcement of a planned marriage, usually made on three consecutive Sundays or holy days prior to the planned date.

marriage bond

[EE] A bond posted by the husband-to-be, with legal security, guaranteeing that the planned union complies with civil laws of the state or colony.

marriage contract

[EE] A prenuptial agreement between bride and groom, or (historically) their parents, wherein the parties identify all property and monies being brought into the marriage and stipulate how communal gains should be divided upon the death of one party or legal separation of the couple.

marriage inquisition

[EE] An ecclesiastical hearing held to gather evidence (written and/or oral) regarding the legal or moral right of a couple to contract marriage; historically common in some Catholic societies but not others.

marriage

[Wikipedia 2014-10-30] Also called matrimony or wedlock A socially or ritually recognized union or legal contract between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between them, between them and their children, and between them and their in-laws. The definition of marriage varies according to different cultures, but it is principally an institution in which interpersonal relationships -- usually sexual -- are acknowledged. In some cultures, marriage is recommended or considered to be compulsory before pursuing any sexual activity. When defined broadly, marriage is considered a cultural universal.

Master Source List

[EE] A term used by some relational databases to refer to a "pick list" or "master list" of sources.

matrilineage

[EE] The female line across generations, with no intervening males; also called uterine lineage.

matrix

[STEMMA] Entity representing the profiled information from multiple sources. Used for correlation purposes.

matronym (also matronymic)

[Wikipedia 2014-10-01] A component of a personal name based on the given name of one's mother, grandmother or an even earlier female ancestor.

[Gramps2] A personal name based on the name of one's mother.

medium

[BCG] A means of showing facsimiles or images of physical sources, including digital images, film, microfiche, microfilm, photocopies, photographs, and video; see facsimile, image, and physical source.

[MGP] A means of showing facsimiles or images of physical sources, including digital images, film, microfiche, microfilm, photocopies, photographs, and video; see facsimile, image, and physical source.

metadata

[Wikipedia 2014-10-05] "data about data". The term is ambiguous, as it is used for two fundamentally different concepts (types). Structural metadata is about the design and specification of data structures and is more properly called "data about the containers of data"; descriptive metadata, on the other hand, is about individual instances of application data, the data content. The main purpose of metadata is to facilitate in the discovery of relevant information, more often classified as resource discovery. Metadata also helps organize electronic resources, provide digital identification, and helps support archiving and preservation of the resource. Metadata assists in resource discovery by "allowing resources to be found by relevant criteria, identifying resources, bringing similar resources together, distinguishing dissimilar resources, and giving location information".

[BG] Usually summarised as "data about data". For instance, (to take a non-genealogical example that I hope still applies), the metadata about a railway wagon number on American railroads tells us that it is up to ten characters long, consisting of a group of up to four letters followed by a group of up to six numbers. It also tells us something about the meaning of those letters (usually ownership). Knowing the metadata helps a programmer write basic validation on input and understand at least some of what the data means. Much of the GEDCOM standard consists of metadata describing how big data items can be, what they mean, what they relate to, etc.

micro-history

[STEMMA] History on a smaller scale than world history. Often researching smaller units such as local places, families, ordinary people, surnames, and the fine-grained events that interrelate them.

minutes

[EE] Brief notes that describe a proceeding, as in minutes of a court session or a meeting of commissioners. History researchers typically encounter minutes as bound volumes maintained by a court or church clerk.

mitochondrial DNA

[EE] That which is located in the mitochondria of cells; passed from mother to child across time; a tool for tracking matrilineage, given that males genetically inherit the mitochondria of their mothers but only females pass their mitochondrial to their children.

monographs

[EE] A scholarly piece of writing on a specific (and often narrow) subject, typically book-length.

morganatic marriage

[EE] A historic form of marriage between a spouse of noble rank and one of inferior rank, in which it was agreed that neither the "lesser" spouse nor the children of the union would inherit the title or possessions of the spouse of "superior" rank; also a kind of dowry delivered on the morning of a marriage, before or after it.

namespace

[STEMMA] A container for a set of names or other identifiers. Each namespace typically has an identifier of its own unless it is the default one.

NARA

[EE] The acronym used for the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

negative evidence

[BCG] A type of evidence arising from an absence of a situation or information in extant records where that information might be expected; one of three categories of genealogical evidence; compare with negative search.

[EE] An inference one can draw from the absence of information that should exist under given circumstances.

[EE-QL13] An absence of what should happen under a given set of circumstances.

[EE-QL17] Conclusions or implications that can be drawn from the absence of a situation that should exist given the circumstances. Caution: negative evidence is not the same as negative findings. Merely not finding what we hope to find is a routine matter in historical research and one that thoroughness often resolves. Negative evidence, on the other hand, remains negative evidence no matter how much more we find. Negative evidence requires us to understand and consider the implications of what should have occurred under a specific set of circumstances—as with Sherlock Holmes’s famous observation about ‘the sound of the dog not barking’ amid a burglary.

[MGP] A type of evidence arising from an absence of information in extant records where that information might be expected; one of three categories of genealogical evidence; compare with negative search.

negative findings

negative search

NGS

[BG] National Genealogy Society - A genealogical organization in the United States that offers support to individuals by publishing the prestigious National Genealogical Society Quarterly demonstrating excellence in research and reports and by hosting an annual multi-day conference featuring a variety of professional and technical experts.

NISO

[BG] National Information Standards Organization - An organization accredited by ANSI and ISO, NISO oversees standards in the United States for libraries, the media, information technology and publishing.

NoSQL

[Wikipedia 2014-10-07] A NoSQL (often interpreted as Not Only SQL) database provides a mechanism for storage and retrieval of data that is modeled in means other than the tabular relations used in relational databases. Motivations for this approach include simplicity of design, horizontal scaling and finer control over availability. The data structure (e.g. key-value, graph, or document) differs from the RDBMS, and therefore some operations are faster in NoSQL and some in RDBMS. There are differences though, and the particular suitability of a given NoSQL DB depends on the problem it must solve.

op cit

[EE] Latin abbreviation for opere citato, meaning "in the work [of that name, which has already been] cited."

original record

original source

PAF

[BG] Personal Ancestral File - A genealogy management software program produced by the LDS Church for the Windows platform currently at version 5.2.18.0, which is not compatible with the so-called "newFamilySearch" and is not listed as FamilySearch Certified.

parameter

[STEMMA] The name-value pairs employed by a Citation or Resource reference to identify specific information or data.

parameterization (UK: parameterisation)

[STEMMA] A mechanism where parameter values are applied to an entity in order to modify its context. This is supported for Citations and Resources. Parameters may be inherited from a base entity, specified in the body of an entity, or specified in a reference to that entity. All of these schemes work together.

parenthetical reference

partially controlled vocabulary

[STEMMA] A set of core predefined terms for the description or categorisation of data that allows for extensions. Extensions are usually defined within alternative namespaces. Contrast with controlled vocabulary. See also vocabulary.

patronym (also patronymic)

[EE] A surname derived from a father’s given name. Example: Leif Ericson as Leif, the son of Eric.

[Wikipedia 2014-10-01] A component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor.

[Gramps2] A personal name based on the name of one's father.

peer review

[EE] The blind or double-blind process by which works of scholarship are appraised or undergo vetting by peers within a professional field. In the blind process, the writer is not told the identity of the reviewer; in the double-blind process, neither the writer nor the reviewer know the identity of the other.

person

[STEMMA] The representation of a unique physical person, including their properties, parentage, event history, and biographical narrative.

[BG] A Person is a real human being who exists or existed. The term is used in Models for the Entity that represents human beings. In Models that contain both Evidence and Conclusion based Entities, the terms Evidence Person or Conclusion Person are sometimes used. Some Models use the term Individual for the Conclusion level Person Entity, or the term Persona for the Evidence level Person Entity. The term Person is also used as the name of the Record type that holds information about human beings in computer Databases and Files.

persona group

[Parallax View 2014-10-22] A group of personae that have been equated with each other (i.e. representing the same individual) but still constituting less than a full conclusion-person.

persona (pl. personae)

[BG] (1) - A term for an entity in the GENTECH Data Model. The GENTECH definition is abstracted below:

Definition: Contains the core identification for each individual in genealogical data, and allows information about similarly named or identically named people to be brought together, after suitable analysis, in the same aggregate individual. Because real human beings leave data tracks through time as if they were disparate shadow personas, this entity allows the genealogical researcher to tie together data from different personas that he or she believes belong to the same real person. The mechanism for this, discussed in the text, is to make different PERSONAs part of the same GROUP.

Relationships: One PERSONA is based on one ASSERTION. However, note that an ASSERTION may link one PERSONA to a GROUP, and thus many separate PERSONAs can be brought together into a higher level constructed PERSONA.

Definition and Relationships taken fom: GENTECH Genealogical Data Model, version 1.1, 29 May 2000, page 60.

Commentary - Note there is NO Person entity in the GENTECH Data Model, and a higher level PERSONA may be constructed from several on a lower level - their data is combined to form the information about the higher level Persona. It is unclear to the author why the term Persona is used in the GENTECH Data Model as the entity appears to have all the obvious characteristics of a Person entity.

(2) - A term for an entity in the new FamilySearch ("nFS") Data Model.

A Persona entity appears to be intended to represent the data extracted from one source about one human being. Their Person (not Persona) entity appears to be intended to represent the sum of the current conclusions about one human being. A Person takes its information from one or more Personas. newFamilySearch uses a two-level data model so Persons are only made up of Personas, which are derived only from sources.

Personal Commentary * There appears to be nothing in nFS that mandates a source record exists in nFS for the Persona. * As indicated above, this is a 2-level model only, so there is no opportunity to combine 2 Personas into a new entity and then to combine that new entity with a 3rd one to create a Person. The Person must be a combination of 3 Personas all at once. * The nFS users never see the term "persona" on-screen - they only enter and combine people. Personas are therefore hidden from the user. * I do not have access to nFS documentation about their data model. This text represents people's deductions about that model from the use of nFS.

See Discussion Differences from FS Personas? and The Evidence Architecture of the New FamilySearch Tree.

[STEMMA] A description of some person from one specific information source, and with no interpretation. Origin is uncertain but there is some history in Genealogical Persona Non Grata.

[EE 2014-12-05] PERSONA is the composite we create by reconstructing the full course of a human life, by considering all the elements that make this person unique, and by thoroughly researching other same-name people of the place and time to sort them correctly.

personal name

[Wikipedia 2014-10-05] A person's full nomenclature, also known as a personal name or full name, refers to a set of names by which an individual may be known, that are or can be recited as a group, with the understanding that they all relate to one person. In some cultures, individuals are known by a single name; in others they may possess a variety of names, some of which are specific to the individual and distinguish that person from other relatives, while others indicate the person's relationship to others, or membership in a family, clan, or other social structure.

[BG] The words by which a Person is known or referred to. In some genealogical Models a Name is an Attribute of a Person Entity. In some computer representations a Name is a Field of a Person Record. The computer representation of a Name's value is typically restricted with rules about length, character set, and overall formatting.

PFACT

physical source

[BCG] A source that can be held or touched but aso may be viewed via a medium; see image and source.

[MGP] A source viewed via a medium; see source.

place hierarchy path

place hierarchy

[STEMMA] A description of a place in which each component of the reference is linked to a parent place with a broader context, e.g. house to street, to town, to county, to state, to country. See A Place for Everything.

[BG] A place may be located within other higher level places covering larger areas, which may themselves be located in even higher level places, forming a hierarchy. The highest level in the hierarchy is often a country, and the lowest for example a farm. A place may be a member of several hierarchies, often defined by different organizations in public administration. Hierarchies may change over time, e.g. when a local place is included in another country, but the local place does per definition stay the same. Place Hierarchies may be represented in data models, databases and files.

place name hierarchy

place name

[BG] A name of a place, often found in sources. A place may have several names at the same time or at different periods of time, and there may be several places with the same name within a given context. A place may have different names in different languages. Place names may be represented in data models, databases and files.

place type

[BG] A classification of a place. Examples of place types are buildings, farms, cities, church parishes, military districts, postal areas, states, countries, continents, oceans etc. The classification may change over time (e.g. a school building changing into a factory), but the type of the highest level places often stay the same. Different terms may be used for a type that essentially means the same classification, possibly using different languages. Place Types may be represented in data models, databases and files.

place

[STEMMA] A named point or area deemed to have significance to humans. Contrast with location and address.

[Gramps] (prim. obj.)The Gramps concept of a Place is a particular location independent of time. Over time, the same Place may have different address information due to changing borders and political situation. For example, Leningrad and St. Petersburg represent the same place, but with different names. Places in Gramps are stored in a hierarchy.

[BG] A place is a geographic area that may be larger than a country and in theory as small as a single point in space. Examples of place types are buildings, farms, cities, church parishes, military districts, postal areas, states, countries, continents, oceans etc. The geographic area representing a place may change somewhat over time, i.e. it may grow or shrink. Places, and information about places, may be represented in data models, databases and files.

plagiarism

[EE] The presentation of someone else’s words or ideas as one’s own, without attribution—whether copied exactly or paraphrased; an ethical issue not to be confused with the legal issue of copyright, based on the premise that the ideas and words of others cannot be ethically used without attribution.

preponderance of the evidence

[EE] A legal standard acceptable in civil cases, whereby evidence on one side of an argument outweighs, at least slightly, evidence on the other side of an argument.

presentments

[EE] An accusation made by a court or a grand jury based on its own knowledge or observation without a bill of indictment having been filed by a prosecutor. In pre-Civil War America, presentments commonly involved females who were visibly pregnant or bore a child without a husband to provide support for the child.

presumptive evidence

[EE] (legal context) Evidence that may not be conclusive but may be reasonably accepted unless demonstrated otherwise.

prima facie evidence

[EE] (legal context) Evidence that appears valid on the surface, without explanation, and—if not contradicted—can be reasonably accepted.

primary information

[BCG] A report of an event or circumstance by an eyewitness or participant; the opposite of secondary information.

[EE] Statements made or details provided by someone with firsthand knowledge of the facts he or she asserted. See also secondary information.

[MGP] Information about an event provided by an eyewitness to the event; the opposite of secondary information.

primary object

[Gramps] Primary objects are the fundamental objects in the Gramps database. These objects are: Person, Family, Event, Place, Repository, Source, Citation, media Object, and Note. Primary objects are treated as tables within the database. Individual components that compose the primary object are stored as individual items in the database. See Using database API, Primary Objects (see also secondary object).

primary source

[EE] A traditional concept within the humanities that is variously defined as an original record, a contemporary account, or a firsthand account, but not necessarily all three simultaneously. The term is no longer used in sound genealogical analysis because any source (and any statement within a source) can be a combination of both firsthand and secondhand information. See also Evidence Analysis Process Map.

printed primary source

[EE] A historic record that has been printed, in full or edited form; it may be an original source or a derivative source, and it may be based on either firsthand knowledge or hearsay, so long as it was created by a person contemporaneous with the times discussed or at least peripherally involved in the incident. Examples: published congressional records, published presidential papers, etc.

PRO

[EE] The initialism traditionally used for the Public Record Office, London.

profile

[STEMMA] (noun) The representation of a subject, object, statement, or concept from a source — such as a prototype subject, event, date, or general words/phrase — and its relationship to other profiles. (verb) To profile a source is to create these profile items for it.

"ProGen"

[progenstudy] Study groups associated with the genealogical reference manual: Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers, and Librarians (Baltimore: GPC, 2001). Also an informal reference to that manual itself.

proof argument

See also proof, proof statement, and proof summary.

[BCG] A documented narrative that explains why a genealogist's answer to a complex genealolgical problem should be considered acceptable and which may be a stand-alone product (like a case study, journal article, or report), or appear within a chapter, family history, or other genealogical work in print, online, or elsewhere.

[EE] A well-reasoned, meticulously documented paper in which a researcher describes a research problem, the process by which it was solved, and the evidence that supports the conclusion. Not to be confused with a proof summary.

[MGP] A documented narrative explaining why the answer to a complex genealogical problem should be considered acceptable and which may be a stand-alone product, like a case study, journal article, or report, or may appear within a chapter, family history, or other genealogical work in print, online, or elsewhere.

proof statement

See also proof, proof argument, and proof summary.

[BCG] A documented data item or sentence stating an acceptable conclusion within a documented genealogical article, blog, chapter, chart, family history, report, table, or other work in print, online, or elsewhere containing documentation that demonstrates research scope sufficient to support the statement's accuracy. See accurate.

[MGP] A documented data item or sentence stating a self-evident acceptable conclusion within a documented genealogical article, blog, chapter, chart, family history, report, table, or other documented work in print, online, or elsewhere.

proof summary

See also proof, proof argument, and proof statement.

[BCG] A documented narrative or list stating facts that support or lead to an acceptable conclusion and which may be a stand-alone product, may accompany an image, collection of images, or lineage-society application, or may appear in an article, blog, chapter, narrative family history, report, or other genealogical work in print, online, or elsewhere.

[EE] A simple recitation or list of documents that support a conclusion; used when all evidence is direct and no evidence conflicts. When conclusions are based on indirect, complex, or conflicting evidence, a proof argument is required.

[MGP] A documented narrative or list stating facts that support or lead to an acceptable conclusion and which may be a stand-alone product, may accompany a report or lineage-society application, or may appear in an article, blog, chapter, narrative family history, report, or other genealogical work in print, online, or elsewhere.

proof

[BCG] A documented statement, summary, or argument that explains or shows why a conclusion is proved; also a description of a genealogical conclusion that is acceptable because it meets the Genealogical Proof Standard's five components.

[EE] A conclusion backed by thorough research, sound analysis, and reliable evidence.

[MGP] Genealogical data and conclusions that are acceptable because they meet the Genealogical Proof Standard’s five criteria.

[ODO 2013-12-24) Evidence or argument establishing a fact or the truth of a statement.

property

prototype subject

[STEMMA] Correlated references to some subject (person, animal, place, group) derived from one or more sources. Contrast with Subject Entity and Subject Reference.

protracted event

[STEMMA] An event entity that has both a start and an end date.

prove

[BCG] The process of using the GPS to show that a conclusion portrays identities, relationships, and events as they were in the past or are today; to establish that a genealogical conclusion is acceptable or accurate; see accurate.

[MGP] The process of using the GPS to show that a genealogical information or evidence item, source, or conclusion portrays identities, relationships, and events as they were in the past or are today; to establish that a genealogical conclusion is acceptable.

provenance

[BCG] The history of a source’s custody.

[EE] (EE 2.12) The origin of material. If our efforts to track provenance are unsuccessful, we should say so and explain the efforts we made. This will help us and others avoid unnecessary repetition of the same. When we carefully report our steps, we or a user of our work may be able later to plug some of the gaps in our research process or our findings.

[MGP] The history of a source’s custody.

published source

[BCG] A source made available for distribution to people wishing a copy; the opposite of unpublished source.

[EE] (2.18) Material that is printed, imaged on film, reduced to electronic disks, or placed online with the intent to sell or disseminate it widely.

[MGP] A source made available for distribution to people wishing a copy; the opposite of unpublished source.

QName

[Wikipedia 2016-03-05] Introduced by XML Namespaces in order to be used as URI references. QName stands for "qualified name" and defines a valid identifier for elements and attributes. QNames are generally used to reference particular elements or attributes within XML documents. Since URI references can be long and may contain prohibited characters for element/attribute naming, QNames are used to create a mapping between the URI and a namespace prefix. The mapping enables the abbreviation of URIs, therefore it achieves a more convenient way to write XML documents.

quality

[EE] (1.14-1.15) A descriptor for (a) materials that are independently created and accurately represent the originals; and (b) the evidence or reasoning presented in a reliable proof argument.

[STEMMA] (source setting) The confidence in a source as an accurate version of an original. Contrast with credibility, reliability, and surety.

QUAY

[BG] Found in GEDCOM 5.5, "CERTAINTY_ASSESSMENT." From the specification (PDF), p. 38-39, in part, "The QUAY tag's value conveys the submitter's quantitative evaluation of the credibility of a piece of information, based upon its supporting evidence. Some systems use this feature to rank multiple conflicting opinions for display of most likely information first. It is not intended to eliminate the receiver's need to evaluate the evidence for themselves." The specification includes further comment, as below. (Note: These further comments are the subject of much controversy.) * 0 Unreliable evidence or estimated data * 1 Questionable reliability of evidence (interviews, census, oral genealogies, or potential for bias for example, an autobiography) * 2 Secondary evidence, data officially recorded sometime after event * 3 Direct and primary evidence used, or by dominance of the evidence See also Surety.

RDF

[Wikipedia 2014-10-04] The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a family of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specifications [1] originally designed as a metadata data model. It has come to be used as a general method for conceptual description or modeling of information that is implemented in web resources, using a variety of syntax notations and data serialization formats. It is also used in knowledge management applications. RDF uses subject–predicate–object expressions (or "triples") to represent entity relationships. For instance: (sky)-(has)-(colour blue). This differs from the classical entity–attribute–value OO model which would use (sky)-(colour)-(blue).

reasonably exhaustive research

[BCG] A Genealogical Proof Standard component, requiring research thorough enough to meet five criteria: (a) yield at least two sources of independent information items agreeing directly or indirectly on a research question’s answer, (b) cover sources competent genealogists would examine to answer the same research question, (c) provide at least some primary information and direct, indirect, or negative evidence from at least one original record, (d) replace, where possible, relevant authored narratives, derivative records, and information that is secondary or undetermined, and (e) yield, where possible, data from sources that indexes and databases identify as potentially relevant.

[EE-JWITR] Thorough research that meets three criteria: (a) Using all identifiable resources for the area or problem; (b) Using original records, not just published derivatives; and (c) Not stopping with the first record that gives an "answer" because that answer may be wrong.

[MGP] The Genealogical Proof Standard’s first element, requiring research thorough enough to meet five criteria: (1) yield at least two independent sources agreeing directly or indirectly on a research question’s answer, (2) cover sources competent genealogists would examine to answer the same research question, (3) provide at least some primary information and direct, indirect, or negative evidence from at least one original record, (4) replace, where possible, relevant authored works, derivative records, and secondary or indeterminable information, and (5) yield data from sources that indexes and databases identify as potentially relevant.

record copy

[EE] A legal copy of a document, made by an official charged with the responsibility to create and maintain records. See also clerk’s copy.

record

[BCG] (noun) An account, in a fixed medium (usually written but may also be fixed by audio or video recording, photography, or other means), of an action, observation, utterance, or other event, typically intended to describe, document, memorialize, or note the action, observation, utterance, or other event; may be original or derivative; a broad subcategory of genealogical source.

[EE] Noun: an account of an event, circumstance, etc.; a piece of writing created to preserve the memory of certain "facts."

[MGP] (noun) An account, usually written, of an action, observation, utterance, or other event, typically intended to describe, document, memorialize, or note the action, observation, utterance, or other event; may be original or derivative; a broad subcategory of genealogical source.

[BG] In computing a Record is a number of Fields of information that are handled as a whole. Records conform to restrictions that specify the sets of Fields a Record of a particular type may have, and the possible values those Fields may contain. Computer databases consist of potentially huge numbers of Records of potentially many types. Records can be written to and read from files.

reference list

[BCG] See source list.

[MGP] See source list.

reference note

[MGP] A numbered paragraph-style feature of scholarly writing that contains one or more citations documenting a specific fact, statement, or series of statements bearing the same number, superscripted, as the reference note; a generic term covering footnote and endnote; see discursive note.

[EE] A citation or comment placed at the bottom of a page or at the end of a piece of writing and keyed to a particular statement in the text; its purpose is to identify and/or discuss the source of the specific statement made in the text.

[MGP] A numbered paragraph-style feature of scholarly writing containing one or more citations documenting a specific fact, statement, or series of statements bearing the same number, superscripted, as the reference note; a generic term covering footnote and endnote; see discursive note.

[STEMMA] Source reference note. Source citation or commentary provided via a footnote or endnote.

related information

related sources

relationship

[MGP] A connection between events, evidence, information, or people.

[BG] A Relationship is a connection between two or more persons, objects or concepts. Models consist of Entities and Relationships, where the Relationships are viewed as labeled connections between Entities. In computer representations Relationships are often implemented as Fields of Records that refer or point to other Records.

Relax NG

[Wikipedia 2014-10-07] REgular LAnguage for XML Next Generation - A schema language for XML. A RELAX NG schema specifies a pattern for the structure and content of an XML document. A RELAX NG schema is itself an XML document but RELAX NG also offers a popular compact, non-XML syntax. Compared to other XML schema languages RELAX NG is considered relatively simple.

reliability

[STEMMA] (source setting) The confidence in the information from a source as being first-hand or less direct. Contrast with credibility, quality, and surety.

repository

[BCG] An agency, building, or room housing source material, like an archive (personal, private, or public), courthouse, historical society, library, museum, town hall, or office (business, governmental, personal, religious, or other use).

[EE] An archive, government office, library, or other facility where research materials are held.

[MGP] An agency, building, or office housing source material, like an archive (personal, private, or public), courthouse, historical society, library, museum, or town hall, and business, governmental, personal, religious, and other kinds of offices.

[BG] An institution such as an archive, government office or library, or any other site or location or service, that collects, manages, archives, curates or indexes, and makes available Source items for Research. Repositories are included in most Data Models as an Entity that represents physical Repositories. In Models that use Object Orientation the Repository Entity may have sub-types to represent different kinds of Repositories. Repositories are represented in computer Databases and Files as Repository Records that conform to the definition of a Repository Model Entity.

research question

[BCG] A question that research aims to answer; in genealogy a focused question that seeks unknown information about a specific person and that helps frame research scope, lead to relevant information, and identify evidence.

[MGP] A question that research aims to answer; in genealogy a focused question that seeks unknown information about a documented person and that helps frame research scope, lead to relevant information, and identify evidence.

research

[BCG] An investigation designed to discover or interpret facts and thus to advance knowledge.

[EE] (1.1) Research is much more than an accumulation of data. It is a process that requires continual comparison of new information against the old; appraising the credibility of each detail in each document; applying every conceivable test for authenticity, contemporaneousness, and credibility of informants; and analyzing findings in historical and social perspective.

[MGP] An investigation designed to discover or interpret facts and thus to advance knowledge.

resolution

[BCG] The separation of conflicting or incompatible answers to a research question into likely correct and likely incorrect evidence, the discard of the likely incorrect evidence, and the explanation for the separation and rationale(s) for the discarding; see conflicting evidence.

[MGP] The separation of conflicting or incompatible answers to a research question into likely correct and likely incorrect evidence, the discard of the likely incorrect evidence, and the explanation for the separation and rationale(s) for the discarding; see conflicting evidence.

resource

[Wikipedia-1 2014-11-03] (computing) Processor time, electrical power, disk space, or computer memory: things that efficient programs attempt to minimize consuming.

[Wikipedia-2 2014-11-03] (computing) structured data, stored alongside unstructured data in a file. Separation of resource-fork and data-fork was a construct of the (classic) Mac OS operating system, but see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_%28Windows%29#Resource_software for Windows.

[STEMMA] Entity describing data or an artefact that is directly available outside of the current STEMMA document. This may include local electronic data, such as documents and images, or physical originals and copies thereof.

Reunion

[BG] Leister Productions - A genealogy management software programme produced by Leister Productions for the Macintosh, iPhone and iPad platforms.

RFC

[Wikipedia 2014-10-05] A Request for Comments (RFC) is a publication of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Society, the principal technical development and standards-setting bodies for the Internet.

An RFC is authored by engineers and computer scientists in the form of a memorandum describing methods, behaviors, research, or innovations applicable to the working of the Internet and Internet-connected systems. It is submitted either for peer review or simply to convey new concepts, information, or (occasionally) engineering humor. The IETF adopts some of the proposals published as RFCs as Internet standards.

RM

[BG] RootsMagic - a genealogy management software program for Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2000 platforms, created by Bruce Buzbee for RootsMagic, Inc.

role

[Gramps] See event role.

Romanization (UK: Romanisation)

[Gramps2] A linguistic representation of a word in the Roman (Latin) alphabet.

[STEMMA 2014-10-05] Representation of language (either written or spoken) using the Latin script. May use transliteration for written text, or transcription for spoken words.

scholarly genealogy

[BG] A term used by the BetterGEDCOM Project to refer to the practice of genealogy using processes, concepts, definitions and standards defined and advocated by various professional organizations, bodies or individuals. We do not attempt to define who is included in this definition.

secondary information

[BCG] A report by someone who obtained the information from someone else; hearsay; the opposite of primary information.

[EE] Details provided by someone with only secondhand (hearsay) knowledge of the facts. The term secondary is also generically used for tertiary (thirdhand) and other levels of knowledge even further removed from the original source.

[MGP] Information reported by someone who obtained it from someone else; hearsay; the opposite of primary information.

secondary object

[Gramps] Contained within other objects that cannot be referenced directly. They can contain other secondary objects. Examples include: Name, Date and Address. See Using database API, Secondary Objects (see also primary object).

secondary source

[EE] A traditional term in the humanities that is variously defined as a copy of a record, an account created long after the fact, or hearsay. The term is no longer used in sound genealogical analysis because any source (and any statement within a source) can be a combination of both firsthand and secondhand information.

Semantic Web

[Wikipedia 2012-10-02] A collaborative movement led by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) promoting common data formats on the Web. By encouraging the inclusion of semantic content in Web pages, it aims at an evolution of the current Web that enables users to find, share, and combine information more easily. The Semantic Web builds on the W3C's Resource Description Framework (RDF).

sentence style

[MGP] Lowercasing all words in a group except the group’s first word and any proper nouns, including formal titles, and ending the group with a period; the form of capitalization and punctuation used in citations.

separation of bed and board

[EE] A legally authorized separation of man and wife that permits them to divide their goods and live separately, while the marriage remained undissolved.

separation of property

[EE] A legal division of marital assets that, historically, allowed a female to act as a feme sole and protected her dowry or other personal assets from creditors of the husband; not a physical separation of man and wife and not a dissolution of the marriage.

serialization format (UK: serialisation format)

[Wikipedia 2014-10-02] The representation of a data structure when "flattened" into a sequence of bytes, either for storage on disk, representation in a memory buffer, or transmission over a communications protocol. The term is a superset of the more traditional file format that equally applies to those other circumstances.

shallow semantics

[STEMMA] The nature of a datum (e.g. a date reference, or a person reference) without any conclusion being offered that identifies the target (e.g. the actual date, or the actual person). Contrast with deep semantics.

short note

[MGP] See short-form citation.

short-form citation

sic

[EE] A Latin term literally translated as so or thus. Placed in square editorial brackets after a word or phrase that is copied from another source, it is used to inform readers that the text has been copied exactly even though it may appear to be questionable or erroneous.

simple event

[STEMMA] An event entity that has a single date.

site

[EE] A location, as in website—not to be confused with the words cite (as in the act of citing sources) or sight (as in eyesight).

SoG

[BG] Society of Genealogists — Long-established UK society. It was incorporated under Licence of the Board of Trade as the Society of Genealogists of London on May 8 1911.

source format

[STEMMA] A definitive plain-text machine-readable version of data that can be used for multiple purposes (e.g. backups, exchange between different products) or from which derivatives can be generated (e.g. loading into an indexed database product, or conversion to alternative formats). The term is analogous to source code in a programming context, which is a definitive representation that can be compiled for different machines, and in any locale.

source label

source list entry

source list

[EE] A bibliography or list of sources used for an essay or in a research project; typically but not always arranged in alphabetical order.

[MGP] An alphabetical or categorical grouping of citations showing research scope, providing the general documentary basis for the content of a lecture, lesson, presentation, or written work, or directing others to sources related to such content.

source of the source

source-list citation

source

[BCG] A container of information; includes all kinds of publications and unpublished artifacts, records, recordings, and written materials; may be used in a physical form or as a facsimile; may be classified as an original record, derivative record, or authored narrative.

[EE] An artifact, book, document, film, person, recording, website, etc., from which information is obtained. Sources are broadly classified as either an original source or a derivative source, depending upon their physical form.

[MGP] A container of information; includes all kinds of publications and unpublished artifacts, records, recordings, and written materials; may be used in a physical form or as a facsimile.

[STEMMA] Origin of information, such as an artefact, book, newspaper, person, census, photograph, Web site, etc. See definite and indefinite source. Entity representing the profiled information from a given source.

speculation

[EE] An opinion unsupported by evidence.

[EE-QL16] (Merriam-Webster) to meditate on or ponder a subject; to review something idly or casually and often inconclusively.

SQL

[Wikipedia 2014-10-07] Structured Query Language is a special-purpose programming language designed for managing data held in a relational database management system (RDBMS), or for stream processing in a relational data stream management system (RDSMS).

standard

[BCG] A principle or measure of quality established by an authority.

[MGP] A principle or measure of quality established by an authority.

STEMMA

[STEMMA 2014-10-04] Acronym for "Source Text for Event and Ménage MApping". Project to devise both a data model and a source format for the computer representation of micro-history.

structured narrative

[STEMMA] Rich-text that uses semantic mark-up to link references to persons, places, groups, and events, to their respective STEMMA entity representations.

subject entity

[STEMMA] Description of a subject that we’re likely to find mentioned in historical sources, e.g. person, animal, place, or group, built up from aggregated evidence from multiple sources. Contrast with Subject Reference and Prototype Subject.

subject reference

[STEMMA] Reference to some subject (person, animal, place, group) from a given source. Contrast with Subject Entity and Prototype Subject.

subsequent (or short) reference note

[EE] An abridged identification of a source that is used to conserve space, once a source has been cited in full in the first reference note.

[MGP] See short-form citation.

supra

[EE] A Latin term meaning above. In source citations, the word follows a shortened title and is used to refer generically to the place in which the full particulars have been given; now considered passé. Previously cited is commonly used in its stead, today, when a notation of that sort is essential.

surety

[EE] (legal context) A person who agrees to serve as a guarantor of a debt or a bond; (genealogical context) a term adopted by developers of some relational database software to place a numerical value upon the level of confidence a researcher may have in a source.

[STEMMA] A numeric estimation of the confidence in a piece of evidence or a conclusion. For instance, a source may have contained original errors, and conclusions may include conjecture and speculation. Contrast with credibility, quality, and reliability.

[BG] Terminology found in one or more genealogy programs. The Master Genealogist (TMG) uses this term.

Definition from the TMG Glossary: A numerical value assigned to indicate the quality of a source in documenting a given fact recorded in the data set. The surety values are recorded in the citation record. The values are: * 3= an original source, close in time to the event * 2= a reliable secondary source * 1= a less reliable secondary source or an assumption based on other facts in a source * 0= a guess * -= the source does not support the information cited or this information has been disproved

About Surety, from the TMG Help file topic "GEDCOM export":

Sureties: When this option is selected, surety values are exported to the extent supported by GEDCOM. Date, place, and memo sureties are exported with a QUAY tag at one level higher (usually 4) than the source citation from which they are referenced.

surname

[EE] (historically) A name added onto a baptismal name to denote the family to which that person belonged, the place to which that person was attached, an occupation, or some other distinguishing trait. Example: Pierre Le Noir, meaning Pierre, the dark one.

SVO

synchronized dates (UK: synchronised dates)

[STEMMA2] The general case of a situation where a point in time is described by two or more dates, expressed in different calendars. This includes the Julian/Gregorian dual dating, often called double dating but not to be confused with the social engagement of the same name.

tag

[Wikipedia 2014-10-23] (XML context) A markup construct that begins with < and ends with >. Tags come in three flavors: start-tags; for example: <section>, end-tags; for example: </section>, and empty-element tags; for example: <line-break />.

tertiary information

[EE] Formally, thirdhand information; in everyday use, the concept of tertiary information is usually incorporated into the term secondary information.

theory

[EE] A tentative conclusion that is drawn after a hypothesis has been extensively researched but the evidence still seems short of proof.

thesis

[EE] A scholarly paper in which one presents findings from his or her investigation of an hypothesis; also used interchangeably with hypothesis to represent the concept being researched.

time zone (TZ)

[Wikipedia 2014-10-02] A region that has a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes.

[STEMMA2] The standard counting of a 24-hour day in a particular region. The time in a given TZ was defined relative to GMT before 1972 but is now defined relative to UTC.

timestamp

[STEMMA2] In the context of STEMMA, this refers to the POSIX-like or UNIX-like interpretation which is an offset from a fixed time called the epoch. Java’s Date class uses this representation and it means that its values are then locale-independent, and unaffected by either TZ orDST.

TMG

[TMG 2014-10-04] The Master Genealogist - A genealogy management software program for the Windows platform owned by WhollyGenes, Inc. It will only be available for sale until the end of September, and technical support will cease after 2014 (see http://www.whollygenes.com/forums201/index.php?/topic/15798-tmg-to-be-discontinued/).

TNA

[EE] The common initialism for The National Archives of the United Kingdom.

TNG

[BG] The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding© is a powerful way to manage and display your genealogy data on your own web site, all without generating a single page of static HTML. Instead, your information is stored in MySQL database tables and dynamically displayed in attractive fashion with PHP (a scripting language).

transcript/transcription

[EE] An exact copy of a record, word-for-word, preserving original punctuation and spelling.

[STEMMA 2014-10-05] Systematic representation of language (either spoken or prior textual form) in written form. May be phonetic transcription (mapping sounds) or orthographic transcription (mapping spoken words).

translation

[EE] A copy of a source in which the content has been expressed in a different language.

[STEMMA 2014-10-05] Conversion of a source language to a target language. Deals with the meaning expressed by the language.

transliteration

[STEMMA 2014-10-05] Conversion of text from one script to another. See also transcription, translation, and Romanisation.

typescript

[EE] A manuscript presented in typed form; or a typed copy of another published or unpublished work.

TZ

See time zone.

Unicode

[BG] The Unicode Consortium — The international effort, initially started in the United States, which publishes a unified, worldwide character set. Unicode corresponds with ISO standard 10646 level 3.

unpublished source

[BCG] A source for which only one or a few copies exist, or a source for which distribution is limited to select people or places; the opposite of published source.

[EE] (2.18) Manuscript material, whether loose papers or bound volumes; also material that is printed, imaged on film, or reduced to electronic disks for preservation only or for very limited sharing.

[MGP] A source for which only one or a few copies exist, or a source for which distribution is limited to select people or places; the opposite of published source.

URI

[Wikipedia 2014-10-04] Uniform Resource Identifier. A string of characters used to identify a name or a resource on the Internet. Such identification enables interaction with representations of the resource over a network (typically the World Wide Web) using specific protocols. Schemes specifying a concrete syntax and associated protocols define each URI. Subcategories of URIs include URLs and URNs.

URL

[Wikipedia 2014-10-04] Uniform Resource Locator. A subcategory of URI that specifies where an identified resource is available and the mechanism for retrieving it. Also known as a web address, particularly when used with HTTP.

URN

[Wikipedia 2014-10-04] Uniform Resource Name. The historical name for a URI that uses the urn scheme. Defined in 1997 in RFC 2141, URNs were intended to serve as persistent, location-independent identifiers. The existence of such a URI does not imply availability of the identified resource, but such URIs were required to remain globally unique and persistent, even when the resource ceases to exist or became unavailable. Since RFC 3986, in 2005, the use of the term has been deprecated in favour of the less-restrictive "URI".

user story

[Wikipedia 2014-10-01] In software development, a short description capturing a specific need or mode of usage by a user of a system. Often used as the basis for defining the functions a system must provide, and facilitating requirements management.

UTC

[Wikipedia 2014-10-02] Coordinated Universal Time. The primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is one of several closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). For most purposes, UTC is used interchangeably with GMT, but GMT is no longer precisely defined by the scientific community; also, some assert GMT can refer to British Summer Time (BST), which is one hour ahead of UTC.

uterine lineage

[EE] A female line across generations, with no intervening males; also called matrilineage.

UTF-8

[BG] The technical name for the Unicode character encoding that is now nearly universally used in computer systems. UTF-8 corresponds to ISO standard 10646-1:2000 Annex D as well as IETF RFC 3629. The terms Unicode and UTF-8 are generally used interchangeably when speaking of computer character sets and encodings.

UUID

[Wikipedia 2014-10-04] Universally Unique Identifier. An identifier standard used in software construction, standardized by the Open Software Foundation (OSF) as part of the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE). The intent of UUIDs is to enable distributed systems to uniquely identify information without significant central coordination. Thus, anyone can create a UUID and use it to identify something with reasonable confidence that the identifier will never be unintentionally used by anyone for anything else

verify

[EE] To test the accuracy of an assertion by consulting other authoritative and independent sources; the term may be applied to the process of searching for that independent evidence or the act of finding that independent evidence. Also see confirm.

[Wikipedia 2014-11-03] (computing) Evaluating if a computer program meets its specifications.

vertical file

[EE] A collection of material relating to a narrow subject; typically maintained by libraries in vertical folders within file cabinets, hence the term vertical file.

vetting

[EE] In the context of historical research: the process of evaluating a scholarly paper to ensure its quality.

vide infra

[EE] A Latin phrase which translates as see below; once commonly used in scholarly writing, but passé today.

vital records

vocabulary

[STEMMA] The allowable values for a given genealogical datum, such as event-type, person-property, place-type. See Controlled- and Partially Controlled Vocabulary.

Web 2.0

[Wikipedia 2014-10-04] Term commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site gives its users the free choice to interact or collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumer) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumer) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. Examples of Web 2.0 include social-networking sites, blogs, wikis, video-sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups, and folksonomies.

witness

[Gramps] (event role) The term that applies to the people asked to be present at an event so as to be able to testify to its having taken place.

working source list

[EE] A list of sources consulted or to be consulted in a research project. A working source list typically contains descriptive or analytical details that will not be published in a final bibliography, unless the final work presents an annotated bibliography. A working source list may also contain references that will not be considered valid or appropriate to the final research product.

XML

[Wikipedia 2016-03-05] Extensible Markup Language is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format which is both human-readable and machine-readable. It is defined by the W3C's XML 1.0 Specification and by several other related specifications, all of which are free open standards. The design goals of XML emphasize simplicity, generality and usability across the Internet. It is a textual data format with strong support via Unicode for different human languages. Although the design of XML focuses on documents, it is widely used for the representation of arbitrary data structures such as those used in web services.

Y-DNA

[EE] The deoxyribonucleic acid found in Y chromosomes passed from fathers to sons.

Source List

List of sources not available online, or which do not contain individual entries that can be cited via specific URLs.

[BCG] "Appendix D: Glossary", Genealogy Standards (Nashville & New York: Ancestry Imprint, Turner Publishing, 2014).

[BCG-EARPM] Evidence Analysis: A Research Process Map (Washington, D.C.: Board for Certification of Genealogists, 2007).

[BG] "Glossary of Terms", BetterGEDCOM Wiki (http://bettergedcom.wikispaces.com/Glossary+Of+Terms, revised 2012-03-06).

[BG2] "Pending Definitions", BetterGEDCOM Wiki (http://bettergedcom.wikispaces.com/Pending+Definitions, revised 2011-04-04).

[CMOS] Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).

[EE] Elizabeth Shown Mills, "Glossary" in Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, 2d ed. rev. (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Pub. Co., 2012).

[EE-JWITR] Elizabeth Shown Mills, "Just What Is 'Thorough Research'?", Evidence Explained: Historical Analysis, Citation & Source Usage (https://www.evidenceexplained.com/quicktips/just-what-thorough-research)

[EE-OCDN] Elizabeth Shown Mills, "Overlong Citations & Discursive Notes", Evidence Explained: Historical Analysis, Citation & Source Usage (https://www.evidenceexplained.com/quicktips/overlong-citations-discursive-notes).

[EE-QL13] Elizabeth Shown Mills, "QuickLesson 13: Classes of Evidence: Direct, Indirect, and Negative", Evidence Explained: Historical Analysis, Citation & Source Usage (https://www.evidenceexplained.com/content/quicklesson-13-classes-evidence%E2%80%94direct-indirect-negative).

[EE-QL16] Elizabeth Shown Mills, "QuickLesson 16: Speculation, Hypothesis, Interpretation & Proof", Evidence Explained: Historical Analysis, Citation & Source Usage (https://www.evidenceexplained.com/content/quicklesson-16-speculation-hypothesis-interpretation-proof).

[EE-QL17] Elizabeth Shown Mills, "QuickLesson 17: The Evidence Analysis Process Map", Evidence Explained: Historical Analysis, Citation & Source Usage (https://www.evidenceexplained.com/content/quicklesson-17-evidence-analysis-process-map).

[EE-QL19] Elizabeth Shown Mills, "QuickLesson 19: Layered Citations Work Like Layered Clothing," Evidence Explained: Historical Analysis, Citation & Source Usage (https://www.evidenceexplained.com/content/quicklesson-19-layered-citations-work-layered-clothing).

[GenTech] “GENTECH Genealogical Data Model”, National Genealogical Society: References for Researching (http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/GenTech_Projects), attachment “Data Model 1.1”.

[Gramps] "Gramps Glossary", Gramps: Genealogical Research Software (https://gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php?title=Gramps_Glossary, revised 2014-10-06).

[Gramps2] "Genealogical Glossary", Gramps: Genealogical Research Software (https://gramps-project.org/wiki/index.php?title=Genealogy_Glossary, revised 2014-10-04).

[MGP] Thomas W. Jones, "Glossary" in Mastering Genealogical Proof (Arlington, Virginia: NGS, 2013).

[STEMMA] "Glossary", STEMMA Project (http://www.parallaxview.co/familyhistorydata/home/glossary, revised 2016-03-04).

[STEMMA2] "Glossary" in "Dates and Calendars", STEMMA Project (http://www.parallaxview.co/familyhistorydata/research-notes/dates-calendars#Glossary, revised 2014-10-02).

[WHE-NGSQ] Elizabeth Shown Mills, "Working with Historical Evidence: Genealogical Principles and Standards", National Genealogical Society Quarterly, 87 (September 1999), 165–84.

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