On 4/14/06, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
I have a specific example: the Wikipedia article on a notable historical figure, like all other sources I have checked, states that he had two wives (in series, not parallel). However, an official government-issued marriage certificate on file in a county clerk's office proves that he had another wife between those two. What will I be permitted to add to this person's article?
Well, in your case, the archival material directly contradicts the published result, then that may not be an appriopriate use of archival material. I talking about cases like, was Nancy Reagan born in 1921 or 1923? Was Jennifer Lopez born in 1969 or 1970 (I use these two examples only because they come to mind right now, I was looking through WP:LAME earlier today :P)? Also, the article that started all this [[Hopkins School]], also used archival sources in a pretty clear way.
Having said that I don't think you should include archival information in that specific situation (because of the contradiction thing), you could if you wished write something like (now, this is without knowing any specifics) "There exists a marriage liscense that suggests that he may have been married inbetween these two marriges, however there are no research to support this" or something a little bit slicker.
Your example is a very good counter-argument for why we should use archival material sparingly, if at all, but I still think that it can be very useful for finding out very specific things like dates of birth and marriages, city-populations, etc. (hard data, that is).
--Oskar