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Genealogical Research Standards 23

registers, a potential newspaper obituary for Robert, land
inheritance records - the list goes on. Sponsors and witnesses
and neighbours at events such as family marriages, baptisms
and land transactions - by association - can provide useful
backup clues when the going gets tough.
Sometimes when the parent-child relationship is not
convincingly argued by the available information or sources
seem scarce, a different method is used to pursue and make
the argument: if you believe that Robert had a brother
Henry, and you can more easily show that a Henry Kent
was the son of James and Charlotte, then your attention
turns to "proving" the sibling relationship.
One of the most difficult obstacles to overcome is a case
where you find two or more individuals with the same name
as your ancestor, in the same general location and time
period. If you are beginning your quest for family history
now, you may thnk this is far-fetched, but it happens more
frequently than you might suspect. By tracking all
occurrences of the "problem" individuals and using different
kinds of genealogical charting - family groups,
chronological time lines - you can make comparisons and
correlations. Sometimes complete "family re-construction"
around those individuals is necessary to separate your own
ancestor from the others.

Genealogical Proof Standard
In those situations where secondary information and
indirect evidence apply, the phrase preponderance of evidence
(POE) was in usage for a good part of the twentieth century.
This phrase was borrowed from rules of evidence used in
civil law courts that are used to determine pedigree or
heirship cases as well as numerous other civil actions. " ...
since personal knowledge (except in rare instances) is lacking,