2009/4/23 Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com:
The other question to ask is why the other sources came up with 1892? Until you find that out, there is a nagging doubt. Did they find a different Doran, did they transcribe something incorrectly, or what?
This is why verbose discursive footnotes are great :-)
...was born in 1767.<ref>A number of sources (Smith 1847, Johnson 1892) quote a birthdate of 1771. However, much of the more recent research (Wilson 1974, Stevens 1982) states 1767, without ambiguity; instances where 1771 are used (the Public Domain Dictionary of Biography) appear to be directly drawn from Smith. The reason for the earlier discrepancy is unclear.</ref>
Hedges our bets (whilst still deciding on a "correct" answer); shows our working; makes people aware the sources are slightly shaky and may need to be treated with caution.
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On a related note, an interesting issue I came across the other day is where my limited primary research - a detail found when I was trying to confirm something else - appears to *explicitly* contradict the secondary sources. What d'you do there?
a) Leave it alone, and put a note on the talkpage? b) Quote the standard interpretation of things, add a footnote about the odd result? c) Decide the secondary sources are wrong, quote the primary source?
I suspect the answer here is B - C is definitely a bit dubious from the OR perspective, but B seems to strike the right balance between the imperative to not present OR as valid and the desire to not knowingly mislead the reader.