Beginner Genealogy Source-Rating Guide

Last updated: 2026-06-29

The first skill in genealogy is not finding records. It is deciding how much trust to place in what you found.

A birth certificate, census entry, family story, online tree, cemetery inscription, surname dictionary, and DNA match can all be useful. None of them should be treated the same way. Some were created close to the event by someone who knew the facts. Others were copied decades later, indexed by a stranger, remembered imperfectly, or guessed from a name.

This guide gives beginners a simple rating system for judging sources before turning them into conclusions.

The Four Questions to Ask About Any Source

Before rating a source, ask four questions:

1. What kind of source is it? 2. Who supplied the information? 3. How close was it to the event? 4. Does it directly answer my question?

Those questions matter more than whether the source looks official or appears on a popular website.

For example, a death certificate may be an official record, but the birth date on it was usually reported by someone else after the person's death. That birth date may be useful, but it is not as strong as a birth record created at the time of birth.

A Simple Five-Level Rating System

Use this scale when reviewing a genealogy source.

| Rating | Meaning | Use It When | |---|---|---| | 5 - Very strong | Direct, original, close to the event, and supplied by someone likely to know. | A birth record naming the child, date, place, and parents, created soon after birth. | | 4 - Strong | Mostly direct and close to the event, but with one limitation. | A marriage record naming ages and fathers, or a census record close to the event being studied. | | 3 - Useful clue | Helpful but indirect, copied, incomplete, or created later. | A death record giving a birth year, an obituary naming relatives, or a later census birthplace. | | 2 - Weak clue | May point toward a lead, but needs confirmation. | An online tree without sources, a family story, a broad surname meaning, or an unsourced local history. | | 1 - Not evidence yet | Too vague, unsourced, contradictory, or disconnected from the person being researched. | A search result snippet, a copied claim, a name match with no place or date, or a crest website claim. |

The goal is not to reject every weak source. Weak clues can lead to strong records. The problem starts when weak clues are written as facts.

Original, Derivative, and Authored Sources

Genealogists often separate sources into three broad types.

An original source is the first version of a record, or the closest surviving version. A parish baptism register, civil birth certificate, land deed, military service file, or handwritten will can be original sources.

A derivative source is copied, transcribed, indexed, abstracted, translated, or summarized from another source. Index entries, database transcripts, typed abstracts, and published extracts are derivative sources. They are useful, but they can contain reading errors, omitted details, and spelling changes.

An authored source is written by someone who interpreted evidence. Family histories, local history books, surname articles, online trees, and research reports are authored sources. Good authored sources cite their evidence. Weak authored sources make claims without showing where the information came from.

| Source Type | Usually Stronger For | Common Risk | |---|---|---| | Original record | Names, dates, places, events, signatures, relationships | The informant may still be wrong. | | Derivative record | Finding the original, quick searching, broad indexes | Transcription, indexing, or omission errors. | | Authored source | Context, interpretation, leads, compiled family history | Unsupported conclusions or copied mistakes. |

Primary and Secondary Information

A source can contain both strong and weak information at the same time.

Primary information comes from someone with direct knowledge of the event, recorded close to when it happened. A parent reporting a child's birth is usually primary information for that birth.

Secondary information comes from someone who learned it later, remembered it, copied it, or inferred it. A son reporting his father's birthplace on a death certificate may be giving useful information, but it is secondary unless he had direct knowledge.

This means you rate each claim inside a source, not just the source as a whole.

| Record | Stronger Information | Weaker Information | |---|---|---| | Birth certificate | Child's birth date, place, parents as reported at registration | Parents' ages or birthplaces if supplied from memory | | Marriage record | Marriage date, place, names of spouses, witnesses | Exact ages if rounded or misstated | | Death certificate | Death date and place | Birth date, parents, birthplace, spouse if reported by another person | | Census record | Household location at that census date | Ages, birthplaces, relationships if misunderstood or rounded | | Obituary | Names of close relatives, funeral details, community context | Older life events, exact dates, distant relationships |

Direct, Indirect, and Negative Evidence

A source can answer your question in different ways.

Direct evidence answers the question plainly. If your question is "When did Maria Lopez marry Tomas Rivera?" and a marriage register gives the date, that is direct evidence.

Indirect evidence helps answer the question only when combined with other evidence. If census records show Maria as unmarried in 1910 and married in 1920, they suggest a marriage window, but they do not give the marriage date.

Negative evidence comes from something missing where you would reasonably expect to find it. If a family appears in one parish register for several children but one child is missing during a gap in the register, that absence may matter. Negative evidence is useful only when you understand the records well enough to know what should have appeared.

Beginners should be cautious with negative evidence. It can be powerful, but it is easy to overuse.

A Beginner Source-Rating Worksheet

Use this quick worksheet for every important source.

| Question | Answer | |---|---| | What is the source? | | | Is it original, derivative, or authored? | | | Who supplied the information? | | | Was it created close to the event? | | | What exact claim am I taking from it? | | | Is that claim primary or secondary information? | | | Does it directly answer my research question? | | | What could be wrong or incomplete? | | | What source should I check next? | | | Rating from 1 to 5 | |

The most useful line is "What exact claim am I taking from it?" A source rarely proves everything on the page. It supports specific claims.

How to Rate Common Genealogy Sources

Civil Birth, Marriage, and Death Records

Civil records are often among the strongest sources, especially for the event they were created to record. A birth certificate is usually strong for the birth. A marriage certificate is usually strong for the marriage. A death certificate is usually strong for the death.

Be more cautious with details about earlier events. Parents' names, ages, birthplaces, and maiden names may be accurate, but they depend on the informant and local record rules.

Beginner rating: usually 4 or 5 for the event recorded, often 3 for older biographical details.

Church and Parish Records

Church records can be excellent evidence, especially before civil registration. Baptism, marriage, burial, confirmation, membership, and banns records may preserve names, dates, witnesses, residence, occupation, and family relationships.

The main risks are handwriting, Latin or local-language wording, damaged pages, gaps, and later copies of earlier registers.

Beginner rating: often 4 or 5 for the church event, lower if you are using a transcript instead of the original register.

Census Records

Census records are useful for placing a household in a place and time. They are also useful for building a timeline, finding relatives, and spotting migration patterns.

But census details can be wrong. Ages are rounded, birthplaces change between years, names are misspelled, relationships may be simplified, and the person who answered the enumerator may not have known every detail.

Beginner rating: usually 4 for residence at the census date, often 2 or 3 for ages, birthplaces, and exact relationships.

Wills and Probate Records

Wills, administrations, inventories, and probate files can be very strong for relationships, property, residence, and social networks. A will naming children, spouse, siblings, neighbors, or executors can connect people in ways other records do not.

The risk is interpretation. A named person may be a relative, creditor, servant, godchild, or neighbor. Legal language can also hide family structure.

Beginner rating: often 4 or 5 for named relationships when clearly stated, 3 when relationships must be inferred.

Cemetery and Gravestone Evidence

Gravestones can provide names, death dates, ages, relationships, religious context, and family groupings. They are valuable, but not perfect.

Stones can be carved years after death, dates can be copied from memory, inscriptions can weather away, and cemetery databases may include transcription errors.

Beginner rating: often 3 or 4 for death information, lower for birth dates calculated from age at death.

Newspapers and Obituaries

Newspapers can add context that formal records miss: occupations, addresses, relatives, accidents, travel, community roles, and funeral details.

Obituaries are especially useful as leads, but they may omit people, use nicknames, include social names instead of legal names, or repeat family memory.

Beginner rating: usually 3 or 4 for recent community and family details, lower for older events recounted from memory.

Online Family Trees

Online trees are finding aids, not proof. A tree can point you toward records, relatives, locations, and hypotheses. It should not be copied without checking the attached sources.

Rate the evidence behind each fact, not the tree itself. A tree with attached original records may be very useful. A tree copied from other trees with no sources is weak.

Beginner rating: 1 or 2 without sources, higher only for the specific records attached.

Surname Meaning and Origin Sources

Surname dictionaries and surname websites are useful for understanding possible meanings, languages, regions, and spelling variants. They do not prove the origin of your specific family line.

A surname source is strongest when it names older forms, languages, regions, and multiple possible origins. It is weak when it says every person with the name comes from one place, one noble family, or one ancient ancestor.

Beginner rating: usually 2 or 3 for general surname context, not direct evidence for a specific ancestor.

Common Beginner Mistakes

The most common mistake is rating a source by how official it looks. Official records can contain secondary information, and informal sources can preserve real clues.

Another mistake is treating a name match as evidence. A person with the same name is not your ancestor until place, date, relationship, and record context connect them.

Beginners also tend to copy online tree facts without checking whether the attached source actually supports the claim. A record attached to a profile may belong to a different person with the same name.

Finally, many beginners force one answer when the evidence is mixed. A careful conclusion can say that a claim is likely, possible, uncertain, or contradicted.

Example: Rating a Conflicting Birthplace

Suppose three records give different birthplaces for the same person:

| Source | Claim | Rating | Why | |---|---|---|---| | 1901 census | Born in Lancashire | 3 | Useful household record, but birthplace may be reported broadly. | | Marriage certificate | Residence in Manchester at marriage | 4 | Strong for residence at marriage, but not birthplace. | | Birth register | Born in Salford | 5 | Direct record of birth, created close to the event. |

The best conclusion is not "the census is wrong." A stronger conclusion is: "The birth register gives Salford as the direct birth evidence. The later census uses the broader county, Lancashire, which is compatible with Salford."

Source Rating Does Not Replace Citations

A rating helps you think. A citation helps you and others find the source again.

At minimum, record:

Title or record set name.
Person or family named.
Date and place.
Page, image, certificate number, entry number, or URL.
Website, archive, library, church, or government office.
Date you accessed the source, if it is online.

Good source notes do not need to be perfect at the beginning. They need to be clear enough that you can return to the exact record.

A Practical Rule for Beginners

Use this rule when deciding whether a genealogy claim is ready to add to your tree:

If the claim is important, try to support it with at least two independent sources, and make sure at least one is strong for that exact claim.

For example, a birth year might be supported by a birth certificate and a census. A parent-child relationship might be supported by a birth record and a will. A surname origin claim might be supported by a surname dictionary for general meaning, but it still needs family records to connect that origin to your own line.

The strongest genealogy is not the tree with the most names. It is the tree where each claim has been weighed, sourced, and written with the right level of confidence.

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