Establishing Relationships

The Reeves Project Tiki is a collaborative research and information exchange where serious researchers post information from reliable sources and discuss their documentation and analysis. The Reeves Project does not require the rigid degree of proof often required by historical lineage societies; however, we do require something substantially more than hearsay.

Much of the information posted on The Reeves Project is a collection of deeds, court records, church records, pension applications, census enumerations and similar documents. From this evidence we might draw conclusions, but conclusions are not proof. When claiming a relationship with an individual there must be a reasonable degree of proof or otherwise it is just speculation.

For the most recent generations in our own lines proof is typically a little easier to establish through copies of birth, marriage and death documents. Earlier generations create more of a challenge as many or our ancestors were illiterate, government records were often spotty, and fires destroyed many repositories over the years. It takes more effort in those cases to establish proof of relationships.

Evidence might be found in church records, cemetery records, tombstone inscriptions, obituaries, probate records, wills, census records, and Bible records, etc. In some cases the proof may be derived from circumstantial evidence, but in such instances it needs to be accompanied by a strong analysis.