Wm Voss replied to my reply as follows:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That said, in the cases you cite, there is certainly every possible of
amassing enough evidence to satisfy you (or whoever is doing the research)
that the likelihood is very, very, very small that there was an issue. But,
to speak of your cases once more, the door is still open: "The living gay
man does not think..." "At least not to anyone's knowledge. . ." etc. Good
enough for you, but as leaky as a sieve to me, an outsider looking in. Would
you not be better served having a full record of the conclusion and the
evidence that lead you to make it, rather than an emphatic "No Issue"
button? You may convince me after all, or I may bring before you some
revelation; either way the opportunity has at least been given.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sigh, I seem to wind up in these semantic arguments so often.
Of course the door is still open. I submit the door is never closed
on any data in our databases.
The Key thing in what you wrote is the phrase 'an emphatic "No Issue"
button'. Well it's no less emphatic than any other datum in
any Legacy database and many of those things are not absolutely
100% true. I've people in my database with three different death
dates/places combinations. Church Records say one thing,
Civil records say another, and a gen page on the web says a third.
Which is the "right" one? How do I know that any of them are
right?? The easy answer is the web page is most likely wrong, but
it has happened that Marriage Certs. Obituarys, and Church Records
have been wrong.
Years ago I first heard a preacher define the difference
between faith and knowing in these terms. A woman knows
the child is hers. A husband has faith that it is his. Babies have
been (very rarely) switched at hospitals, so couples don't always
bring their birth child home from the hospital. In that case both
the mother and father are wrong in their belief that such a child
is theirs and they may go to their graves thinking that. In such
a case the civil and church records are likely to be wrong also.
When I wrote "The living gay man does not think..." that was
my interpretation of this relative telling me "I don't have any kids."
Then pausing and giving the frequent male qualification, "at least
none that I know of". This person is as sure as any non-virgin
male can be that he's never fathered a child. In fact, due to his
gay lifestyle, he's probably more certain of that than a hetero-sexual
male non-virgin.
I have little control over what anyone other than myself accepts as
proof. But I think it is a mistake to accept any information in
any genealogical database anywhere as "absolutely true" or
to use your phrase "emphaticaly true". All that check box means
to me is that at some point in time the creator of the database
had done some level of research to convince himself or herself
that that person had never had children. This assumes you
accept the database as not corrupted and that the person
was basically honest to some degree.
jr
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