Genealogy -What is the difference between a primary and secondary source?

Indeed, not all sources are created equal!



As a working genealogist, you'll need to know the vital difference between primary and secondary sources.



A primary source is a document - or even sometimes a person - that is contemporary with the period you're writing about. Let's take, for example, the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Primary sources for this event would be all news accounts generated at the time, including newspaper stories. Additionally, any person who was present at the event can be counted as a primary source as well. Even those individuals who were not actually in Dallas at the time of the shooting, but were alive and can attest to their feelings, what they saw on television, as well as the mood of the nation and the world, are considered primary sources. So this would even include diaries of individuals who witnessed the event, and government documents and other papers generating a response to it.



Secondary sources to this event, by contrast, include books written after the event,

re-creations of the event; and accounts of individuals not alive, created by people who researched primary sources. Historians use secondary sources in several ways. First, they may use these when they just can't access the primary source. Or they may start by reading the secondary sources with an eye to discovering precisely which primary sources that author used. And then they head straight to that source itself to see what else can be gleaned from it.



In pursuing research, every historian attempts to get as many primary sources as possible. Keep in mind that you are indeed a full-blooded historian, so to speak. You have an obligation to use as many primary sources as possible. Even in your pursuit of oral history - the retelling of the family tree from older family members - you need to retrace these tales to discover documentation - primary sources - that verify the stories. Let's face it; sometimes we all remember some aspects of events that may not be quite accurate.



For the genealogist, a good example of a primary source is a birth certificate of Aunt Jane- an original one dating from the time of the individual's birth. A secondary source would be the interview with Aunt Jane's daughter Ingrid who said that Aunt Jane was born in 1932. Ingrid wasn't present at the birth.

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