On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Rob wrote:
Searching far
and wide to find a secondary source that quoted the primary
source gains you *nothing* except compliance with Wikipedia rules. The
secondary source isn't going to do any better fact-checking than you did when
you just looked at the primary source directly--it just fills a rules
requirement.
The secondary sources (presumably, ideally) will discuss why there
is
a discrepancy between the birth records and the obituaries and
encyclopedias and dig into the issue a lot further than just merely
announcing "the obituaries are wrong".
In this context, the secondary source is "I found a reference to a newspaper
article which quotes the date". It's not going to discuss the conflict the
way you describe--it's just more acceptable because it better fits the rule.