One Document to Rule Them All

The title of this post you might recognize as being stolen from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring but the subject matter is actually stolen from biology.

Scientifically describing a new species is an exacting endeavor. Ideally, one has an entire specimen of the new organism that can be used for study and comparison to other, similar organisms. That specimen is referred to as a “type specimen,” specifically as the holotype-

the single specimen designated by an author as the type of a species or lesser taxon at the time of establishing the group (Merriam-Webster)

That definition might be a mouthful but the idea is pretty clear. The discoverer of a new species puts forth a specimen that others can use for study and comparison to other organisms. Going back to Tolkien, it is one specimen to rule them all.

More and more I find myself applying a similar concept to genealogical research. As one researches, one finds new individuals who are the parents, siblings, cousins, neighbors, in-laws, friends, and associates of the people you had been researching. Some will be interesting to you and may help you solve a genealogical problem. That all looks great until you try to follow those people. Sometimes the records will be sparse and the names common. It can be tempting to conclude that the few hints you have involving the correct name are all the correct person. Sometimes there might be plenty of records but the people lived in a city and finding them might feel like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. It can feel overwhelming with many records that might relate to the person you want. It is easy to feel as if your research is simply drifting aimlessly.

For awhile now, I’ve been picking my own “holotypes,” not “type specimens” like a biologist might for species, but  “type documents” for individuals. The document becomes that “one document to rule them all.” It can be whatever document I have that connects the new individual to my research problem, or it might be a document that gives information about a person I only suspect of being related to my problem. In either case, from then on, I think of it as defining that individual. For example, If I am researching John Doe, he is not just anyone with that name. He is the John Doe listed as a witness in a specific marriage document, or who lived at a specific address and had a specific occupation in a city directory.  From then on I ask the question “Is the document I am now looking at clearly giving me information about the same individual as the individual in that holotype document?” Is there a link, perhaps via other documents, to my one holotype document? If I can’t make the link, I can’t say that the individual in that new document is definitely a new person, but it does mean that I can’t simply accept that it is the same person and use that information.

This way of looking at things means that you always have a definition of that individual to go back to when in doubt. Other documents will add information but only if they are clearly linkable to that one original document that defines the individual. Either a new document you are looking at can be linked to that definition, or it can’t. If it can’t, set it aside. It might be about the right person, but it doesn’t meet the standard without further documentation that can provide that link. Tossing in a document that doesn’t pass muster, just because “it looks pretty good,” runs the risk of allowing the research you’re performing to lump several people together into one individual.

Sometimes it might be that the individual that emerges from linking documents to that one starting-point document turns out not to be the person that I was hoping, but I still have a clear reconstruction of an individual, not a fuzzy situation that I need to keep wondering and worrying about. Having that one holotype document to refer to keeps the research anchored—the one document to rule them all.