BCG Risk Management & Mitigation 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A genealogist finds two men with identical names living in the same county at the same time. Which strategy BEST mitigates the risk of conflating their identities?
- Assume the older man is the ancestor since he appears first in records
- Use cluster research to track each man through neighbors, relatives, and associates separately (Correct answer)
- Choose the record with the most detail and discard the other
- Average the biographical data from both men to create a composite profile
Correct answer: Use cluster research to track each man through neighbors, relatives, and associates separately
Cluster research traces each individual through his unique network of associates, reducing the risk of identity conflation when namesakes coexist.
Question 2: Under the BCG's Genealogical Proof Standard, what is the primary risk of relying on a single record to establish a lineage conclusion?
- Single records are never admissible in genealogical reports
- A single record may contain errors, omissions, or deliberate falsehoods that go undetected without corroboration (Correct answer)
- Single records are always secondary sources and therefore unreliable
- Using one record violates copyright law in genealogical practice
Correct answer: A single record may contain errors, omissions, or deliberate falsehoods that go undetected without corroboration
GPS requires a reasonably exhaustive search specifically because any single record can be flawed, making corroboration essential to sound conclusions.
Question 3: Which action BEST reduces the risk of transcription errors when working with handwritten 19th-century records?
- Rely on existing published abstracts to save time
- Transcribe letter-by-letter verbatim and note uncertain characters with brackets (Correct answer)
- Modernize spelling during transcription to improve readability
- Summarize the content in your own words rather than transcribing directly
Correct answer: Transcribe letter-by-letter verbatim and note uncertain characters with brackets
Verbatim transcription with bracketed uncertainties preserves the original text and flags doubtful readings for future verification.
Question 4: A genealogist discovers that a courthouse fire destroyed all deed books for a county before 1870. Which mitigation strategy is most appropriate?
- Conclude that research for that county before 1870 is impossible and move on
- Search substitute records such as tax lists, probate files, federal land records, and neighboring county deeds (Correct answer)
- Use oral family history as the sole replacement for the destroyed deeds
- Reconstruct the deeds from memory-based sources only
Correct answer: Search substitute records such as tax lists, probate files, federal land records, and neighboring county deeds
Substitute record strategies—tax lists, probate files, federal land records—often preserve information lost when original civil records were destroyed.
Question 5: Which of the following represents a risk introduced by using an online family tree posted by an unknown contributor?
- Online trees always contain accurate data because they are moderated by Ancestry.com
- Unsourced or poorly sourced data may propagate errors that become difficult to untangle once widely copied (Correct answer)
- Online trees are protected by HIPAA and cannot be used in research
- Family trees from unknown contributors are considered primary sources under the GPS
Correct answer: Unsourced or poorly sourced data may propagate errors that become difficult to untangle once widely copied
Unsourced online trees spread compounded errors rapidly across the genealogical community, making the original mistake increasingly hard to identify and correct.
Question 6: What is the chief risk of failing to record the full citation for a source at the time of discovery?
- The source becomes legally inadmissible in court proceedings
- The researcher may be unable to relocate or verify the source later, undermining the research conclusion (Correct answer)
- The source must be discarded under BCG ethical guidelines
- Other researchers will claim copyright infringement
Correct answer: The researcher may be unable to relocate or verify the source later, undermining the research conclusion
Without a complete citation captured immediately, a researcher may be unable to return to the source, verify data, or allow peer review of the work.
Question 7: When a genealogist's research conclusion rests on indirect evidence from multiple records, what is the primary risk that must be mitigated in the written proof argument?
- That all cited records belong to different record types
- That the reasoning chain connecting the indirect evidence to the conclusion contains logical gaps or unsupported leaps (Correct answer)
- That indirect evidence automatically disqualifies the conclusion from BCG standards
- That using more than three records makes the argument too complex to evaluate
Correct answer: That the reasoning chain connecting the indirect evidence to the conclusion contains logical gaps or unsupported leaps
A proof argument built on indirect evidence must be logically airtight; any gap in the reasoning chain allows an alternative conclusion to stand.
BCG Risk Management & Mitigation 2
A genealogist finds two men with identical names living in the same county at the same time.
Which strategy BEST mitigates the risk of conflating their identities?