Why start with what you know?

We Build on What We Already Know

We start with what we know because, simply, we can’t start with what we don’t know.  That may sound a little backwards—or perhaps a little too obvious—but think about how we learn almost anything new.

We build new knowledge on something we already understand.

Think about how we teach children math.  First, we teach them to count. You have one ball, and I give you another ball.  How many balls do you have? One, two.

When we teach addition, we build on that same understanding.  You have one ball, and I give you one more.  One ball plus one ball.  Go back to what you already know: count them.  One, two.  The answer is two.

The same thing happens as we move on to subtraction and, eventually, more complicated math.  Each new concept builds on something we already understand.

Genealogy isn’t math, of course, but the principle is the same.

If we want to find out where someone was born or even identify who someone was, we can’t simply pick a person at random from history.  I mean, we could, but the chances of choosing the right person would be so small that it wouldn’t give us a useful way to begin.

Instead, we start with something—or someone—we already know.

What You Know Narrows the Search

Suppose you are looking for someone named John Smith who was born in England.  You need to know a little more about him to make sure you aren’t confusing John Smith the tailor in London with another John Smith somewhere else.

That’s why we start with someone we already know, or at least with something we already know about them.  It means we aren’t starting from zero.

Think of it as looking for a needle in a haystack.  Everything we know gives us something to compare against what we find.  That comparison helps us narrow the possibilities.  The more we know, the smaller that haystack becomes.

For example, suppose you don’t know who your grandparents are, but you do know that your father’s name is Daniel.  You find four families that might be your father’s family.  Two have no child named Daniel, while the other two have a son named Daniel.

For now, you can set aside the first two families and concentrate on the ones that include a son named Daniel.

Does that mean the first two are absolutely the wrong families?  No.  Daniel may simply be missing from the particular record you’re looking at.  But right now, you know that the family you’re looking for should include a son named Daniel, so that gives you a way to narrow your search.

Now suppose you also know that Daniel was 15 years old in 1920, which would put his birth at approximately 1905.  Of the two remaining families, one has a Daniel who is about 21 in 1920 and the other has a Daniel who is about 14.

The 14-year-old Daniel is a closer match to what you know.

Does that prove he’s your Daniel?  No.  There are still other things you need to consider.  But you’ve narrowed the possibilities again.

Later, perhaps you learn that Daniel married a woman named Betty.  If you find a Daniel with a wife named Augusta, does that mean he can’t be your Daniel?  Again, not necessarily.  People can marry more than once.  But the difference is something you need to consider along with everything else you know.

That’s what we’re doing every time we research.  We start with what we know and compare it with what we find.  As we verify more information, we gain more points of comparison and can more easily identify records and people that don’t match.

There will always be things we don’t know.  That’s why we’re researching in the first place.  History contains too many people, too many possibilities, and far too many people with the same names for us to search effectively without a starting point.

What we already know gives us that starting point—and every additional piece of verified information helps narrow the search.

What You Know Helps You Avoid False Assumptions

Most people don’t deliberately start with something they don’t know.  We don’t simply pick a random person and decide, “That looks like the right family.”

More often, the problem begins with information we’ve been given but haven’t verified.

For example, suppose you’ve always been told that your family was from Chicago and that their records were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire.  You might naturally assume that the ancestor you’re looking for was born in Chicago—or at least somewhere in Illinois.  As a result, you might eliminate anyone who was born somewhere else.

That might seem like a reasonable assumption, but it could also lead you in the wrong direction.

I have family members who immigrated from Norway and lived in Chicago around the time of the Great Chicago Fire.  Some of their children were born there, and the family later moved on to Washington State.

If I had assumed that this family was from Chicago or Illinois simply because they had lived there, I could have eliminated the very immigrant family I was looking for.

That’s why we need to be careful about the assumptions we make from what we know.  Starting with what we know gives us a place to begin, but part of the research process is determining which pieces are accurate, which need more investigation, and which may not be accurate at all.

Not Everything You Know Is an Established Fact

Usually, when we begin with inaccurate information, it isn’t because someone deliberately gave us a false story.  More often, it comes from a family story, myth, or other information that simply hasn’t been verified.

In fact, family stories often contain at least some truth.  The problem is that stories can change as they are passed from one person to another.

Think of the telephone game.  One person tells a story to someone else, who passes it along slightly differently because they misheard, misunderstood, or misremembered part of it.  The next person does the same thing.  After several generations, the story may be quite different from where it began, even though no one intentionally changed it.

Take my Chicago family as an example.  The original story might have been that the family immigrated to the United States, lived in Chicago during the Great Chicago Fire, and then moved on because the city was devastated.

The next generation might simply remember that the family was from Chicago.  That isn’t very far from the original story, especially since some of the children actually were born there.

But another generation or two later, the story might become, “Our family was from Chicago,” or even, “Our family lived in Chicago for generations.”

The story began with truth. It simply changed as it was passed down.

That’s why we need to distinguish between information and established facts.  Information is something we’ve been given or discovered but haven’t yet verified.  Once we have enough evidence to establish that it’s accurate, we can treat it as a fact.

That doesn’t mean family stories and family myths aren’t valuable.  They can point us toward people, places, events, and records we might want to investigate.  But until we find evidence that supports them, they remain information rather than established facts.

They can help guide our research.  They just shouldn’t determine its conclusions.

What About Other People’s Family Trees?

Starting with what you know gives you a point of reference for evaluating new information—including information you find in someone else’s family tree.

Other people’s family trees can be helpful guides.  They may give you names, dates, places, relationships, and even sources you haven’t found yet.  But until you evaluate that information for yourself, treat it as information rather than an established fact.

When you find another family tree, compare what it says with what you already know.  Does this person have the right relationships?  Do the names, dates, places, and other details fit?  What sources support the information on the tree?

If something doesn’t match what you know, don’t automatically assume the tree is wrong.  The difference tells you that there is something you need to investigate.  The tree may be wrong, what you thought you knew may be wrong, or there may be another explanation you haven’t discovered yet.

And if the tree gives you information you didn’t already have, that’s okay too.  Treat it as a clue.  Follow its sources if it has them, look for additional evidence, and determine for yourself whether the information belongs in your family tree.

That’s one of the reasons starting with what you know matters.  It gives you something to compare new information against.  Instead of allowing someone else’s conclusions to become your starting point, you can evaluate what you find and use it to continue building and verifying your own family history.

You Need Somewhere to Begin

Starting with what you know doesn’t mean assuming what you know can never be wrong.  You don’t have to know everything before you begin, and everything you know doesn’t have to turn out to be right.  What you know gives you a point of reference—a place to begin and something to compare against what you find.

As you research, some of what you started with will be confirmed.  Some of it may be corrected.  Other pieces may remain unanswered for a while.  And that’s okay.  New information can be compared, questioned, and evaluated against what you already know, and when the evidence supports it, it can become part of what you know going forward.

That’s why we start with what we know.  It isn’t because we already have the answers.  We start there because we need somewhere to begin finding them.