The Genealogical Proof Standard

 

The Genealogical Proof Standard is the process that genealogists follow to determine if they’ve done everything necessary for a credible work.  There are five essential steps to this process. 

1.  Reasonably exhaustive research is completed. 

2. Each fact has an accurate source citation.  

3. The evidence is reliable, correlated, and interpreted carefully. 

4.  Any contradiction in evidence is resolved. 

5. The conclusion is sound and written clearly.  

This process helps the genealogist determine what they need to learn and how to approach problems in their research to come to a correct conclusion.

Reading the Old Handwriting

 

I want to share a methodology for reading a document. This is helpful when transcribing documents in a foreign language.  A step by step procedure like this helps even those who are familiar with transcribing records. 

 1.  Identify all the names in the document. This will be the easiest thing to do.  I like to look for proper nouns that are capitalized, and names often look much the same in different languages.  

2.  Identify dates, beginning with the month followed by the day and year. (I didn’t realize that sometimes the day and year are written out and sometimes they aren’t.) This can be used as an answer key for how the letters were written in other words in the document.

3.  Identify action verbs and relationship words such as married, born, and died.

4. Identify places.  This is the most difficult because of all the variation. Use gazetteers, online maps, and Wikipedia articles to help with this.

 

 An article was published in the Die Wilt Post, 1938, about the village of Anton.  

Refer to the AHSGR Journal, Vol. 6, No. 4, Winter 1983, for a more detailed 

account of the village.

Anton was located along the Volga River.  One of the industries of the area 

was a sugar beet factory.  In 1875, the sugarbeet factory closed and the 

people had to resettle to other areas for work.  A group of Antoners went as 

far away as Baku, in the Caucusus, to find work.

I have been the Village Coordinator for Anton for many years and also have 

a passion for the movement to The Caucasus.  The Stark family resided

in Anton and are related to the Hert family. 

I encourage fellow researchers to share any Caucasus information.  Thanks

for the support.

Dee Hert

VC:  Anton and other villages