A published genealogy should have citations for every fact without relying on geneathologies.
We genealogist know that we should cite our sources, not in the least because we never seem to tire of telling each other that we should cite our sources.
I've expressed the notion that not all sources are equally deserving of citation; third-party genealogies are worth citing, geneathologies are not.
That does not mean that you should remove all references to geneathologies from your database, it merely means that means that once you've marked a source as a geneathology instead of genealogy, reports should deemphasize it, and perhaps not even show that source.
Even for geneathologies, which are practically the antithesis of the idea that you should cite your sources, the underlying principle still stands: your database should document where you got your data from. When you see that citation, you are reminded that you already consulted that source. When you see the indication that it is a geneathology, you know that you need to find at least one better source to back up your alleged facts.
Not all geneathologies are created equal.
That you should not cite geneathologies, does not imply that you should ignore all geneathologies as a source of information. That some research was published as a geneathology does not imply you should automatically dismiss it as worthless. Not all geneathologies are created equal.
It is not hard to google for genealogies created by beginners who had no idea of the value of citations. In fact, many of us have been such a beginner ourselves, and still have unsourced data we collected back then. Experienced genealogists have no trouble naming several sites which are full of such geneathologies. It is reasonable to ignore such geneathogies.
However, other geneathologies are the results of careful research, but have simply been published without citations.
Many experienced genealogists posts their genealogies on the net as cousin bait, but deliberately leave out the citations. They do so not only to prevent others from plagiarising their research, but also to make sure that serious researchers with an interest in the same ancestral lines will contact them to find out more.
Whether you agree with that practice or not, fact remains that many genealogists do this. The corrolorary to that observation is that you should contact them for more information.
Some genealogy journals demand very high quality work from prospective authors, yet to save money and paper, their research is eventually published without citations.
I suggest and hope that such journals will switch to a digital format that does include citations, perhaps even for older issues.
That published works do not include citations does not imply that you should exclude the author or journal from your reasonable exhaustive search. You should, when possible, contact the author for information.
Geneathologies are not worthy of citation as evidence.
I wrote, in Do not cite Mythology, that you should not cite geneathologies.
That should not be misunderstood as meaning that you can or should ignore all geneathologies,
or that no geneathology is worth referencing.
It merely means that you should not cite a geneathology, an ostensible genealogy that itself does not present any source for its alleged facts, as evidence for your facts.
It specifically means that you have a problem when your only source is a geneathology;, when your only source is a geneathology, you do not have any evidence at all.
A published genealogy should have citations for every fact without relying on geneathologies.
Your database should cite the geneathologies you use, so that you know you consulted a source already. The source should be marked as a geneathology, so that you know it is unsourced, and that, when push comes to shove, that source isn't any evidence at all. Your database should cite the geneathology as a source, but your publications should not cite it as evidence.
Geneathologies are not worthy of citation as evidence.
There is nothing wrong with acknowledging geneathologies that proved helpful in figuring out a genealogy. It is good practice to cite your sources and show how exhaustive your search has been, but you should not cite geneathologies as evidence; that's exactly what even the best geneathology is not.
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