I’ve been reading the Genealogy Standards (1) put out by the Board for Certification of Genealogists, and I’ve come upon an analogy that I think will help people understand the differences between the terms Sources, Evidence and Proof. While one could easily check the dictionary definition for these words they are technical terms that come with specific meanings in the context of genealogy. Baking is one of my other hobbies so you’ll excuse me if I look to baking to explain these terms.

Genealogy is definitely not a piece of cake -imagine trying to bake something when you can’t find an ingredient, the ingredients you can find are suspect, and there’s twenty different ingredients that are all different but have the same name. But much like following a treasured recipe, following the standards laid out for us gives us a much higher chance of success.

Sources are like ingredients. While one could pick up any ingredient from anywhere, we like to know that the ingredients we are using are going to help us make a good cake. We are fortunate that no one is allowed to sell us chalky milk anymore and we can trust that when we buy flour, what is actually in the package is flour. Unfortunately the same isn’t true of the genealogy world. There is no organization that exists to sift the wheat from the genealogical chaff; it’s something we must do ourselves. When someone says a document they found is evidence or proof of something, it’s the equivalent of them presenting you with ingredients of suspect origin and telling you they have made a cake.

Even if they tell us where they acquired their ingredients so we know they aren’t suspect, and mixed them all together, they still don’t have cake. This is a batter, and we will call this batter evidence. Until it’s fully baked, it’s still not cake.

Proof is a cake. Something magical happens to cake as it bakes that turns the inedible to edible, much like something happens to evidence once it’s fully analyzed, reasoned and written up in a coherent way. Delicious.

1 Board for Certification of Genealogists Board for Certification of Genealogists (https://bcgcertification.org/product/bcg-genealogy-standards/ : accessed May 16 2019) “Genealogy Standards, fiftieth-anniversary edition (2014)”