Use this checklist for one claim or relationship at a time. Keep your working notes open beside the source. If a check fails, leave that claim in your private research notes until you can address it.
The Genealogical Proof Standard requires adequate research, accurate citations, evidence analysis, conflict resolution and a reasoned written conclusion. Read the explanation of the standard . These checks help you apply that discipline before another researcher sees your conclusion.
Step 1. Check privacy before any AI work.
- If you use Claude, turn off training on your Anthropic account first. Complete the privacy walkthrough before sharing family information.
- Remove living-person details from the working material. A deceased person’s record can still identify someone living.
- Check the file you intend to publish. A private note or caption can travel with an otherwise suitable document.
Step 2. Inspect the source.
- Open the source yourself. An assistant’s description does not count as your inspection of the evidence.
- Record whether you saw an index, transcript or original image. Each gives a different view of the underlying record.
- Compare the claim with the exact wording. A date or relationship added during a summary needs its own support.
- Save the collection title, reference and page or entry details. Another researcher needs a way to locate the same evidence.
- Add the source URL and your access date. A link alone can lose its meaning when a website changes.
- Mark unreadable words as uncertain. Filling a gap with a likely name creates evidence that the document did not supply.
Step 3. Check the person and relationship.
- Compare more than the name. Dates, addresses and associated people help distinguish candidates who share it.
- Keep competing candidates visible. Selecting the most appealing one does not explain why the others were rejected.
- Check each parent-child link separately. A sound biography cannot repair an unsupported connection to your family.
- Separate residence from parentage. Living with someone does not by itself make that person a parent.
- Preserve approximate dates as approximate. An estimated year cannot justify an exact day and month.
- Check the identity of any pictured person against the full caption. A resemblance may fail when the complete name key appears.
Step 4. Test the conclusion.
- Label each claim VERIFIED, INFERRED or UNCONFIRMED. The label must describe that statement, not your confidence in the whole branch.
- Explain every inference in plain words. Readers need to see how the evidence supports the conclusion.
- Check whether apparently separate sources copy the same record. Repetition does not create independent support.
- Keep contradictory evidence beside the preferred conclusion. Removing it makes the problem invisible without solving it.
- Write what would change your mind. This gives your next search a way to test the favoured answer.
- Record a failed search with its terms and coverage. No result in one search does not prove that no record exists.
Step 5. Decide what is ready to share.
- Keep unresolved parent links out of a settled pedigree. One wrong join can attach a whole unrelated branch.
- Distinguish a source’s statement from your accepted conclusion. A faithfully copied entry can still contain an original error.
- Explain a correction where an earlier version circulated. Quietly changing your own file leaves other copies uncorrected.
- Describe material AI assistance and your checks. The coalition’s disclosure principle helps readers understand how the account was made.
- Check the source’s conditions before sharing an image. Access to a record does not itself establish permission to republish it.
- Save the checked version and its review date. You need to know which evidence supported the version you shared.
If the evidence remains unresolved, write a research note explaining the question. Leave the conclusion open. You have still recorded useful work.