Reliable Sources

[Jimmy]

Hello all.

Recent debates have seen several posters question the reliablity of certain sources (Census returns, Booth research, Police Statements, Inquest reports, photographs, modern commentators etc).

Contemporary newspaper reports are invaluable, but not always reliable.

In a field where references and source citations seem to be paramount, what do we base our research on, and what can be trusted?

[How Brown]

A+ Question,Mr.Bennett....A+:kiss:

We've seen people disputing here,there,and elsewhere... whether or not Nichols,Chapman,and Stride...as well as Eddowes, were soliciting on the nights they were murdered. Contemporary newspaper accounts labeling them as "unfortunates" and the nomenclature of "unfortunate" coming into dispute ..whether the photo of Eddowes was actually Eddowes...and that the organs taken from the victims was not the handiwork of the Ripper and perhaps some ghoul at the ready at the local mortuary.

I think its good to challenge "evidence" that some of the older ( Class of 1988) Ripperologists have supported over the years. The premise that Tumbelty,for an example, was a bisexual since he was married can be easily challenged since we have only the Conoverian version of events to go on in regard to Tumbelty. There's no proof that Tumbelty was anything other than a homosexual man. That in itself isn't really an "earth shattering" observation,of course...but one has to admit that the concept of Tumbelty ever being married had gone a long way until it was revealed that Colonel Dunham was not exactly the most reliable source to accept.

I don't necessarily dispute too many of the contentions that exist today to the body of work the more experienced Ripperologists have provided....of course,I lean towards the GSG being legitimate as one example in opposition to several older gents and ladies theories and positions....but in light of Jimmy's excellent question, what are your feelings ?

Please focus on exactly what area ( census...newspaper...police deposition...etc.) troubles you most OR....what area you feel is most credible and why.

Its funny, but I would wager that hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours and umpteen posts regarding the whereabouts and particulars of D'Onston's wife....not to mention the few major league battles Ivor and I had over this issue....were so easily concluded by the generous and quick thinking work of Dave Knott last week when he opened up the 1911 census. Up until Dave provided us all with the goods on Anne Deary, I had felt that Nina Brown had successfully put her particulars in order 3 years ago. I was wrong and yet I was right. I was wrong to accept the death of deary as a result of coal gas inhalation WITHOUT using the 1911 census. Of course, I was right to challenge the premise RDS killed her,since that was merely a concept...and one based on wishful thinking in the first place. If I, as a Ripperologist, had one thing to do all over again in this beloved field...I would have not accepted that sources existed in relation to the life of RDS without seeing them first. As we say in Philadelphia, if you have a hard head,you probably have a soft ass (from getting it kicked by yourself from jumping to wrong conclusions).

In addition...try and think of an area you think would be profitable to peruse. Someone on these boards may be able to do for you what Dave Knott did for a lot of us.

Thank you...and thanks again to Jimmy.

[Mike Covell]

Hi Jimmy, I use a lot of contempory newspapers when researching the Stephenson family, but ensure that I cross reference these with magistrate papers. So everytime I find a story, I check the date, contact the archives and take it from there.

The same method is used when looking at census returns, burgess rolls, polling books, trade directory entries, etc. I use one to back up another.

Needless to say, this approach has given me solid dates for both the Stephenson and Dawber familes from the mid 1700's, to the present day.

I also try to verify what living descendants have mentioned with known facts, and use all of these to create a bigger picture.

My chronology on Stephenson stands at over 100+ pages, with over 1,000+ entries, utilising letters, magistrate papers, census entries, shipping registers, burgess rolls, polling books, year books, council sessions, numerous newspapers, hospital records, birth, marriage and death details, christening registers, contemory books and journals, maps, plans, and much much more.

This not only gives me a single core time line, but also enables the time line to be thickened with known facts, to enable a clearer picture to be created!

[A.P. Wolf]

I think the most reliable indicator of whether anything is true or genuine is if the proponets get annoyed with you, and call you silly names, when you question that veracity.
To be that 100% sure is not only a very lofty mountain, it also means the petticoat is showing beneath the dress.
I like to snip round that petticoat and make it neat.

[Jimmy]

Hi Jimmy, I use a lot of contempory newspapers when researching the Stephenson family, but ensure that I cross reference these with magistrate papers. So everytime I find a story, I check the date, contact the archives and take it from there.



I think the idea of cross-checking newspaper reports when dealing with the Ripper case is essential, unless you're just mentioning 'what was said' at the time, without necessarily using them to prove a point.

Some of the reports based around the Whitechapel Murders were extremely sensational and names, for example, were occasionally spelt wrong or given erroneously in the first place (aliases and all that).

[Lyn Resthal]

Forgive, not Jack related, but I've found census returns to be wholly confusing with regard to my own genealogy, although I'm not sure whether it was just a case of 'fudging' by individuals, or the census taker not getting things clear. I've learned through other sources (personal diaries/records and lawyer/court documents) that my family did apparently have a few things to hide, which might explain why certain children were either listed as grandchildren or nephews, or individuals were listed as married, and under a married name when they weren't. Were it not for B/B(baptism)/M/D certificates to cross reference, I'd be quite lost about dates of birth still. My g-g-g-grandfather is listed in the 1861 return as HOH, age 28, yet his step-son age 9 is listed as grandson. (In that same return my g-g-g-grandmother's age is listed as two years younger than she was, according to her baptism and marriage certificates.) The 1851 census lists the same child as a nephew, age 3 months, with my g-g-g-g-grandmother as HOH. Yet his baptism certificate states that his mother was my g-g-g grandmother, and only the three of them were recorded to be in the house when that census was taken.

Question for A.P., Robert or Nina: why so much confusion with census reports?

[Mike Covell]

I think the idea of cross-checking newspaper reports when dealing with the Ripper case is essential, unless you're just mentioning 'what was said' at the time, without necessarily using them to prove a point.

Some of the reports based around the Whitechapel Murders were extremely sensational and names, for example, were occasionally spelt wrong or given erroneously in the first place (aliases and all that).

I use the Stephenson related reports alongside other sources, such as magistrate papers, burgess roll information and trade directory entries. Most of these reports are pre 1879 and although they are detailed, having another source is great to get a bigger picture.

With the 1888 news reports, I am transcribing them first, and adding an appendix to the end, showing the actual factual events. I chose to not inject the contempory reports with footnotes, as it detracts from the style in which they were both written and presented.

But mistakes, I can not move for mistakes!

[How Brown]

Lynners:

Nina's going to respond shortly....

In my case, there is a man named Reed Wurts who has been maintaining the 1,000 year old geneaological work on my kinfolk on a site on the Internet. It has been handed down for centuries to one member to the other of the basically Norman side of the tribe...and it is so concise that when I approached Reed...a distant cousin I suppose with a common great grandmother and a different way of spelling "Read", a very common and handed down name within my family...and told him that he omitted my uncle R.S.Brown from his records, he refused to put this new information down on his site since I didn't have any birth certificate or any other records my first cousin Stacey, who is a member of this site, ought to have because its her dad. Thats how exacting some geneaologists are....and I suppose should be.

In our Case...the WM...sometimes we eagerly accept data when we should remember that the census takers who wrote down the information apparently couldn't write legibly or gave a flying eff about whether they were spelling the surnames of people correctly. They didn't know,nor care, that one day all of that information would be crucial to us.

[Nina Brown]

Lyn,

why so much confusion with census reports?

The census taker would simply write down what was reported by whomever was in the home at the time. They could be given wrong information or they could have confused the information themselves. I have seen quite a lot of census mix ups like yours.

Nina :)

[Robert Linford]

Lyn, one common mistake that people made was to forget that it was the relationship of each person to the head of the household, and so you get for instance a father with his daughter and grandchildren, they'll forget and make it look as though the children were his. But another one is, if a daughter had a child out of wedlock, the parents would sometimes list it as their own.

[Lyn Resthal]

Thanks, Nina and Robert;

I'd be in a right old mix up if I went by census alone. I suspect my own family were merely masking illegitimate liaisons going by lawyer/court documents. Thank goodness there's no need to do that these days.

Quote How Brown: "In our Case...the WM...sometimes we eagerly accept data when we should remember that the census takers who wrote down the information apparently couldn't write legibly or gave a flying eff about whether they were spelling the surnames of people correctly. They didn't know,nor care, that one day all of that information would be crucial to us."

From my genealogical experiences alone, it seems the census takers didn't care too much if history was rewritten. Documents that we can cross reference make all the difference.

Lyn

[Jimmy]

What I find dodgy with census reports is name spelling and age.

I have recently noticed that Charles Brittan (slaughterman who saw Nichols' body in Buck's Row along with Mumford and Tomkins) was actually Charles Bretton - he lived in Buck's Row and Winthrop Street in 1881 and 1891 respectively.

His name is Bretton on both census returns, yet he has been described as Brittan, Brittain, Britton.

[Mike Covell]

One only has to look at Robert D'Onston Stephenson, who has been called Douston, and one of my fave's Rosleyh or something similar!:banghead: