[WikiEN-l] Age fabrication and original research

[Ray Saintonge]

Durova wrote:
> Suppose for discussion's sake we can fully trust that the brother-in-law of
> Jeane Dixon's nephew has indeed commented upon the matter.  Relatives have
> been known to get their facts wrong.  The more distant, the more likely a
> mistake.
>   

Your presumption here is that the information came from "the 
brother-in-law of Jeane Dixon's nephew". That may very well have some 
weight in evaluating the information on a death certificate.  The birth 
information in the SSDI could reasonably be from a different source: her 
own application for a social security number.  Other official sources exist

> My own cousins and I debate the spelling of a grandmother's name.  And
> certain records are unverifiable because of warehouse fires.  In a few
> instances I know the later records are wrong because I was present when the
> later data was recorded and the person who answered the questions, who was
> choked with grief, simply misspoke.  Others who were present were jet lagged
> from sudden arrangements to attend the funeral and too slow to react.
> There's a family member who ought to have a military honor on his burial
> marker but doesn't, because of that.  I wish I'd had the presence of mind to
> correct the omission when the opportunity came.
>   

Spelling gives rise to a broad range of different errors.  My own father 
misspelled my middle name on my birth record as "Micheal" even though 
his own first name was "Michael". 

On census records spelling errors abound.  When census takers went out 
to gather information in a less literate era they were left to their own 
devices when they had to record the name of an illiterate, particularly 
in the case of an immigrant whose name was in a strange tongue. Priests 
who performed marriages often "fixed" names to make them more consistent 
with community norms.

> Let's go with the secondary sources here.  No disrespect intended.
>
>   
Leaving data from a secondary source untouched when it is in reasonable 
doubt is more obtuse than disrespectful.  If we continue in this way we 
perpetuate errors, and only add fuel for those who consider Wikipedia 
unreliable

One secondary source that uses 1904 for Jeane Dixon's birth is IMDB, but 
they err in their link to her husband James Dixon.  He was an 
acquaintance of Hal Roach, and the Dixons were married in 1939, but the 
linked James Dixon was *born* in 1939.

Ec