If you are using a genealogical database such as WieWasWie, beware that the record you are looking for may not be in the index. Either it may not exist (anymore, if ever), or it may not have been indexed yet.
Most indexes provide a table of contents that show which records have been included. If you don’t find the record you are looking for, check the contents to make sure that the record should be there.
- If the record should be there, and you can’t find it despite searching for variations of the name, that may be negative evidence that the event happened in another time or place, never happened at all, or that the person used another name.
- If the record is not included in the index, you cannot draw conclusions from the lack of results. What you have are negative findings, not negative evidence.
Lookups in the population register. Credits: Charles Breijer, collection Nationaal Archief (CC-BY).
About Yvette Hoitink
Thank you for the reminder of “negative findings, not negative evidence”. I must keep reminding myself that my many many negative findings are not negative evidence.
If I may, I would like to quote you on this.