John Lee wrote:
On 4/30/07, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
I can't agree with this. The other day, I created a biography article for an individual whose full name (including MI), date and place of death, and age at death I had. I used the SSDI to obtain the date of birth rather than leave a blank in the article, as I couldn't find it elsewhere. No rational policy would preclude using the records for something like this.
I would say it depends on the individual case; one-size-fits-all policies won't work here. If we have most of the blanks filled, and can confidently say that we're talking about the same individual, then there's no reason not to rely on things like the SSDI where no other source can be found. If there's so little information available that we can't confidently say the SSDI is referring to the same person as the subject of the article, then it's original research.
That's a reasonable limitation which makes that information less reliable when we are dealing with a very common name. It all boils down to the ability to make sound judgements about information.
Ec