I’ve talked about the difference between sources, evidence and proof (1) as well as the classification of sources (2), but I haven’t yet talked about classification of information.

In the social sciences, particularly in history, there is no distinction made between the sources and the information that these sources hold. These fields generally think of sources as primary or secondary rather than thinking of them as original or derivative. Primary means that the person reporting the information has first-hand knowledge of what they are reporting, and secondary means that they heard it from someone else. In genealogy, however, a distinction is made between the source and the information, and so we first classify the source as original, derivative, or authored, and then classify the information in that source as primary, secondary or undetermined.

It’s easy to understand why the classification of primary or secondary is necessary. I’m sure we’ve all played the game of “broken telephone” where a phrase is whispered from person to person and is often unrecognizable by the time it reaches the last person. In court we generally do not allow someone to testify based on what they had heard from someone else, because we understand that details are lost or altered in the retelling from one person to the next.

A source is a container for information. Much like a salad bowl, which can contain many different vegetables, a source can contain many different types of information. Thankfully, we are not required to come up with a single classification for the different types of information, instead we look at all the pieces of information and assess each one separately.

In order to classify the information, we need to know who the informant is. Sometimes it is obvious, because it is clearly written. Sometimes it is not clear at all, but we can still guess as to who provided the information. If we are really not sure we can classify the informant as undetermined.

Take a census record. Most census records do not record who the informant is. It’s possible the adult in the household or a neighbour gave information. But if very specific information is left blank or filled in, it can give us a clue.

If we consider a death certificate, an informant is usually given. Suppose the informant was the husband. He was with his wife when she died, so the date of death is information he knows first-hand. This is primary information. However, the death certificate also gives you a date of birth. Hopefully the husband knew this information, but given that he wasn’t there when she was born, this would be secondary information.

Going through the process of classifying the information allows us to assess how accurate the information is. Perhaps we have conflicting information, such as date of birth. If the death certificate says one thing, but the birth record says another, we can see why the birth certificate (with the informant who was there when it happened) is going to be a more accurate source than the death certificate (with the informant hearing the information second-hand). Ultimately, the final classification of a piece of information is not as important as the overall analysis. The process of thinking about who the informant is and whether they had first-hand knowledge of the event they are giving information about matters more than a single label.

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Thanks to my ProGen colleague Jeff who used the salad bowl analogy in a discussion

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1) Jennifer Wiebe, Jennealogie “Sources, Evidence and Proof,” July 12, 2019 (https://maltsoda.wordpress.com/2019/07/12/sources-evidence-and-proof/ : accessed 9 Jun 2023).

2) Jennifer Wiebe, Jennealogie “Derivative vs. Original Sources,” October 17, 2019 (https://maltsoda.wordpress.com/2019/10/17/derivative-vs-original-sources/ : accessed 9 Jun 2023).

3) Jennifer Wiebe, screenshot of 1931 census, June 2023, author’s files; “1931 Census,” Library and Archives Canada (https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census2/index1931?DataSource=Genealogy%7CCensus1931&ProvinceCode=MB&DistrictCode=1931&SubDistrictCode=42474& : accessed 9 Jun 2023), image 7 of 8.