Tag Archives: brick wall

In a recent column, we discussed some of what happens when you have multiple sources for the same piece of data. Let’s say Zio Angelo’s birth date. He told the census taker he was born in 1892. He told the draft registration he was born in 1894. His hospital orderly said he was born about 1900 when he died. The final answer, if there is one, is to put more trust on the older piece of data, recorded closest to the actual event. There would theoretically be less reason to lie about ones age, and the people who were witnesses …