Book Review: Evidence Explained 4th Edition

Author Elizabeth Shown Mills has done a masterful job in revising Evidence Explained, 4th edition, because she's both streamlined and thoughtfully updated the content of this indispensable reference book.

Streamlined and robust

Since the first edition was published in 2007, this has been the gold standard for understanding and citing genealogical sources. 

Actually, it's the platinum standard because of the clear, robust explanations about the wide variety of resources we use to research and document our ancestry. Mills goes well beyond how to cite specific sources--she delves deep into source quality and what that means for the credibility of evidence and, ultimately, the credibility of our conclusions.

What's new?

Here's a look at the contents page:

Note the convenience of 14 citation templates!

Chapter 3 is new in this edition. Instead of printing dozens of sample templates for us to adapt in citing sources, Mills has simplified the examples into 14 templates that become the building blocks of citations. These templates range from basic book and website citation to citing books, magazines, newspapers, databases, authored manuscripts, and even gravestones viewed personally. Easier for readers to understand, easier for readers to implement. 

Mills knows how much information comes from online sources these days, and she carefully demonstrates how to cite such sources. In Chapter 13, p. 624 shows how to cite a video or webinar. In Chapter 15, p. 683 shows how to cite a blog, p. 689 shows how to cite a podcast, and p. 690 shows how to cite posts on social media such as Instagram. You'll even find a page on Generative AI (artificial intelligence) in Chapter 15.

Convenient QuickStart

Don't skip over the grey pages at the front of the book. First is "The Evidence Analysis Process Map," with sources (original or derivative records or authored narrative) that provide information (from an informant who has first-hand, second-hand or unknown level of knowledge) used as evidence for an analysis leading to the genealogical proof of our conclusion. 

Page 1 is a handy QuickStart guide to diving into Evidence Explained, followed by two pages summarizing the basics of source citations, at a glance.

For more about Elizabeth Shown Mills and Evidence Explained, plus tutorials and other bonus material, see her website.

DISCLOSURE: I received a free review copy of this book from Genealogical.com, but the opinions in this review are entirely my own.

In Beta at Ancestry: Top Hints Feature

 In beta at Ancestry is a feature called Top Hints, which I'm exploring this week.

The leaf symbol captioned "beta" in the image above is where to click for "top hints for 10 people in your tree." Not every Ancestry member may have this new feature, but it is interesting because it calls attention to people from across the tree, people I may have not worked on recently. I know, I know, hints can be misleading or outright ridiculous. But ya just never know, so I do look now and then. This feature is like a variety-pack of hints from across the tree.

Clicking on the beta leaf brought up the list at right in the image. One name is blank here because it's a living relative. To look at the hints in more detail, click on the down arrow at right of each name. In my first list of hints, all were actual records or indexes, like Census documents, marriage/death indexes, or draft registrations, which I can evaluate individually. No ship illustrations or DNA strands, so far. 

Above, how Ancestry explains and introduces "Top Hints."

For me, Top Hints is something to check first thing in the morning before I dive into an ongoing project, or when I have a spare 10-15 minutes at any point. Take a look and see whether you have this beta feature and how well it works for you.

As you can see from the image at top, I'm also having fun with the new fan feature in Ancestry, which I learned about from a blog post by Diane Henriks. I haven't been able to change the number of generations displayed, so as she says, this feature must still be in beta. I like the suggested ancestors shown in green on the fan, hints that I can review and, mostly, reject unless there's solid evidence to investigate. 

IMHO, I'm the quality assurance person on my family trees, deciding whether to accept or reject any hint after looking at the source's credibility and relevance. Most "possible parent" hints get rejected, but occasionally those with real sources lead me in promising new directions. 

Put Your Genealogical Proof on Your Tree(s)

Last night, Shelley Bishop gave a terrific talk to my local genealogical society, titled "Avoiding an Ancestor ID Crisis." She suggested writing a proof statement to clarify your evidence and reasoning when trying to determine which individual is actually your ancestor.

But what about public family trees that show the wrong individual instead of the person you can now prove is the real ancestor? Or collaborative trees where someone is perpetuating incorrect info? I have some ideas, please read on!

Ask questions, answer questions

A decade ago, nearly all public family trees showed the mother of Lucinda Helen Bentley Shank as S.L. Hixon, based on an old county history book. Above is the page in question, where a sentence notes: "The first children born where those of S.L. Hixon and Wm. T. Bentley, in 1835." (See green arrow.)

Reading that source, I had questions: Why would S.L. Hixon be named that way, rather than with a given name and the surname of Bentley? Also, reading the rest of the page, it seemed clear that S.L. Hixon was male, since he had a first wife named Nancy (above the green arrow) and is mentioned in the final sentence as "Mr. Hixon."

My theory was that the book was naming only the fathers of the first two babies born among settlers in 1835. Digging deeper, I was able to locate and order a death record for Lucinda. Although only an extract was available at that time, it clearly showed Olivia Morgan as the mother's maiden name, NOT S.L. Hixon. 

Therefore, I added Olivia Morgan as a new name to my family tree, and uploaded the death cert extract as proof she was Lucinda's mother. Six other people subsequently saved the extract as source to their family trees. Later, Lucinda's actual death cert became available and I attached it as my source, as well. Even though death certs aren't necessarily completely accurate, I felt fairly confident because I found Olivia's name on another child's documents. 

On Ancestry, I posted the S.L. Hixon page on Olivia Morgan's profile (since she was, after all, the wife of Wm T. Bentley and mother of one of the first babies born to settlers). Soon afterward, someone posted a question on the "comments" section of the source page, asking how I found Olivia to be the mother. Shown above, I explained my reasoning. Happily, over time, Olivia Morgan replaced S.L. Hixon as the mother on dozens of family trees!

BUT you don't have to wait for anyone to ask a question. You can simply post your own comment about proof on a source or on your ancestor's profile. If your tree is public, any researcher can read your comment. Maybe that comment will diminish the spread of incorrect info and encourage the spread of accurate info.

Show your proof as a source

On Family Search, I posted a document and explanation to confirm that Olivia Morgan was indeed the mother of Lucinda Helen Bentley Shank. 

It's easy to do this by creating your own source on the ancestor's profile. I uploaded the death cert extract from Olivia Morgan's daughter, and wrote a sentence explaining why this source was being attached (see blue star above).

This is an easy way to share your source and reasoning with others who are researching the same ancestors--and, hopefully, persuade them to leave the facts intact based on your evidence.

UPDATE: In her comment below, Teresa Eckford recommends using the new "notes/alert" function added to FamilySearch a few months ago. Here's a link to learn more about this easy way to let others know about important research info for a particular ancestor. TY to Teresa for this excellent suggestion! 

John Wood Had a First Wife? Turn on the GPS!

Genealogy is never finished! There's always someone or something to research on the family tree. 

But in the 23 years I've been looking for ancestors, nobody ever mentioned that hubby's uncle John A. Wood (1908-1980) was married twice. 

Until this week. 

An older relative in the Wood family remarked, in passing, that John was once married to "Louise" or a lady with a similar name. A new clue.

I already knew about his wife Rita, named in my father-in-law's diaries and letters, as well as in John's obit and as the informant on his death cert.

John and Rita married in 1951. Their marriage cert has no information about previous marriages. I turned on the GPS (Genealogical Proof Standard) as I dug deeper into John's life before Rita.

Which John Wood is which?

Finding the correct John Wood in a veritable forest of men with similar names would not be easy. 

Luckily, John's obit (and several Census records) showed his middle initial and other details not shown on other documents, including the fact that he worked for DuPont for many years.

Looking for "John A. Wood" and "Louise" together in a Census in Indiana (where he was when he remarried) led me to two records on Ancestry. Both showed John married to "Elsie," and working in the chemical industry. That could very well be DuPont, but I had no real proof as yet.

Next, I redid my search with "Elsie" as the wife and immediately found John's World War II draft registration card. This seemed to be the correct John A. Wood--it had the correct birth date and birth city, and it listed his middle name as "Arthur," the only place it ever appears. Arthur is a family name on John's mother's side. 

I really felt on firm ground when I read that John's employer was...DuPont! His wife, "Mrs. Elsie Wood," is listed as the person who will always know John's address. So John's first wife was clearly a lady named Elsie (not Louise). Numerous clues led me to this conclusion (GPS).

When and where did John and Elsie marry?

Next, I searched for John and Elsie's marriage on FamilySearch, and found a record of their marriage in Porter, Indiana, on November 19, 1928.

My timing was good, because (as the citation at left shows), this Indiana database is only available online as of April, 2021. 

Even without the image (which I'll see soon), this transcription indicates I have the correct John A. Wood. My evidence, a la GPS: he is most definitely the son of James E. Wood and Mary Slatter, exactly as shown on the transcription. I need to see the image with my own eyes to suit GPS standards, but all the details in the transcriptions are a perfect match with existing evidence.

Now, with Elsie's maiden name and birthplace/birth date, I've been researching her background, adding her parents and other relatives to my husband's family tree.

If not for (1) a relative's casual mention of John's previous marriage, (2) his consistent use of a middle initial, and (3) a record of his employer/industry, I might never have been able to track down this ancestor's first wife. TY to the GPS for guiding me in the right direction.

Discrepancies Disprove a Genealogy Theory

 

Recently, I wrote about the perils of researching my young 1c2r Pauline Jacobs (abt 1901-1907).

When Was Pauline Born?

I didn't know exactly when this little girl was born, although I knew she was born in New York City. 

Several possibilities turned up when I initially searched Ancestry and the Italian Genealogical Group (see results excerpt below). 

After seeing this list, I theorized that my Pauline Jacobs was born on June 26, 1901. The birth date fit quite well with what I knew from her death cert. Still, the bare-bones index or even a quick transcription wouldn't be enough to prove or disprove this theory. I needed more details, available on the full/original birth certificate, to more definitively prove a match--such as the parents' names and birthplaces, their home address, etc. 

Not my Pauline Jacobs

When I obtained the actual cert (excerpt is shown at top), I noticed that the parents' names do not match what I know about MY Pauline. Here the mother's name is Pauline Uhle, but MY Pauline's mom was Eva Micalovsky. Same goes for the father's name on this birth cert, not a match for MY Pauline. Father's occupation is not what I know of Pauline's father, either. Parents' birthplace differs from what I know.

Moreover, my Jacobs ancestors didn't live on West End Avenue in Manhattan (the address on this cert) and probably didn't even know anyone there; West End Avenue is quite far from the Lower East Side where the Jacobs family lived in this period. Looking at all the discrepancies, I'm confident this is NOT my cousin Pauline. The details don't match what is already known from other documents.

Theory disproved, next steps

After ruling out June 26, 1901 as Pauline's birth date, I redid my search to see whether there were other possibilities. This time I used the Germany Genealogy Group's database page, which checks volunteer-transcribed birth indexes from New York City.

The results shown here include a Pauline E. Jacobs born in May of 1899, but I'm not even tempted to look at her cert. Why? Because my Pauline was NOT in the Jacobs household according to the 1900 Census. That year's Census was taken on June 1. The Pauline E. Jacobs in the search results was born in 1899 and I strongly believe my cousin Pauline was born after the 1900 Census.

One big reason I think Pauline was born after mid-1900 is because Eva Jacobs told the enumerator she had 5 children in all but only 4 were living. All four were named in the Census listing and I know them all. So far, no good possibilities for a birth cert, but I'll keep looking.

Who's in the plot?

Knowing that Eva and Joseph Jacobs had lost a child before the 1900 Census, I took a little side trip looking for a child's death cert from before 1900. 

I clicked to the "interment search" on the website for Mount Zion Cemetery in Maspeth, NY, where the Jacobs family is buried in the Plungianer Society plot. Doing a search for any "Jacobs" in that plot I found Annie Jacobs, who was buried in that plot on February 1, 1896 according to the cemetery's website. 

Family Search shows a death index record of a one-year-old girl named Annie Jacobs on February 15, 1896, with burial on February 16, 1896 in Mount Zion Cemetery. Parents are Joseph and Eva Jacobs. With the theory that Annie Jacobs was the missing baby lost before 1900, I asked a kind parking lot angel to pull Annie's death cert image for me to examine more carefully. So grateful to these volunteers for their assistance!

Not all details fit . . .

Sadly, I saw on the death cert that this Annie was only 13 months old when she died of bronchitis, with contributing causes of rubella and "brain congestion." 

The cert says her parents were Joseph Jacobs and Eva (no maiden name, darn it!), both born in Germany (supposedly). Address was a tenement on West Third Street, close to the Lower East Side. 

Doctor Oscar Smith, who signed the death cert, lived around the corner. Since he wasn't at Annie's side when she died at 1 a.m. on February 15, according to his own statement, he might not have really known where the baby's parents were born, but made a guess based on their foreign accents. (I'm guessing about his guess now.)

Until I can locate a birth cert and get more info, I'm going to put Annie down as "very possibly" the daughter of Joseph Jacobs and Eva Micalovsky Jacobs--the child who passed away before the 1900 Census. I still need a bit more evidence, but most of the details fit AND she is buried close to her parents in the cemetery, which helps to support but not prove my theory. Yet.

A Is for Alfred or Alford

Is it likely that a sibling would know how to spell his brother's name?

The reason I wonder is that one of my husband's Wood ancestors appears as Alfred O. Wood in some documents and Alford O. Wood in other documents. It's definitely the same man, but with a slightly different given name.

Alfred/Alford O. WOOD was born on October 17, 1855 in Cabell County, Virginia (now Huntington, West Virginia). His parents were carpenter/coach builder Thomas Haskell Wood and Mary Amanda Demarest. He died on March 26, 1895 in Toledo, Ohio, at the age of 39. According to funeral home records, the cause of death was consumption.

I've found info about Alfred/Alford in the following sources. Keep in mind that Census enumerators weren't required to ask about correct spelling; the way this ancestor's name was inconsistent in Census records.

Sources showing name as ALFRED:

• 1860 US Census - As shown at top of this post, Alfred was listed as 5 years old when the enumerator came around to the household of his parents. NOTE: This enumerator used creative spelling. The 1-year-old girl in this household was listed as Levacia, but her real name was Levatia.
• 1870 US Census - Alfred was listed as 14 years old during this Census, occupation as chairmaker. No creative spelling for rest of siblings.
• 1874 Toledo City Directory - Alfred is shown as a carpenter with Jonathan N. Williams.
• 1879 Toledo City Directory - Alfred O. Wood is shown as a carpenter with the Wabash Railway.
• 1880 Toledo City Directory - Alfred O. Wood is shown as a carpenter with LS & MS Railway.
• 1881 Toledo City Directory - Alfred O. Wood is shown as a carpenter.
• 1891 Toledo City Directory - Alfred O. Wood is shown as a carpenter with Wood Bros.
• 1894 Toledo City Directory - Alfred O. Wood is shown as a carpenter.
• 1930s listing of Wood siblings - Alfred O. Wood is included in this list, handwritten by his younger brother on "Wood Brothers, Builders" letterhead. This page was kept in the Wood family bible for decades.

Sources showing name as ALFORD:

• 
  1880 US Census - Shown here is the Wood household in 1880. Alford O. Wood (fourth name from top of list) is recorded as a 25-year-old carpenter. 
• 1895 Toledo City Directory - Alford O. Wood is shown as having died on March 26, 1895, at the age of 39.
• 1895 Funeral Home record from Toledo, Ohio - Alford O. Wood is shown as the deceased, death date of March 26th, with burial on March 28th in Lima, Ohio, which is 80 miles away from Toledo. 
  

Given that the vast majority of sources show the name as Alfred O. Wood, and his brother also used that name on the sibling list, I'm going with ALFRED O. WOOD unless and until more definitive, reliable evidence turns up for the Alford version.

Turn on Your GPS and Look at the Actual Image

Oh, it's tempting to accept the transcription here, and not look further.

After all, Aaron Work (1837-1924) is only a roomer in somebody else's household. He's a 1c4r, not a major figure in my husband's family tree.

But maybe he's rooming with a member of the FAN club (friends, associates, neighbors) possibly meaningful to family history?

Time to turn on the GPS (Genealogical Proof Standard). Don't settle for somebody else's transcription.

Always look at the image of the actual record. 

Here's what happened when I went looking for Aaron Work with the GPS in mind.

Transcription says household of King family

I was researching Aaron Work for last week's #52Ancestors prompt, because he was a fire insurance agent and the prompt was fire.

In the 1920 US Census, Aaron was widowed and a roomer, as the transcription shows. Following the Genealogical Proof Standard of referring to the original record rather than relying on a transcription, I clicked to view the Census page.

And that's when I saw something that I've heard about but not yet experienced in 23 years of genealogical research.

"Supplemental" entry

Aaron's entry was added later by a supervisor, long after the enumerator had completed that page. It was marked as "supplemental" and added on April 1st, whereas the rest of that page was dated January 22.

The official Census Day in 1920 was January 1st, but officials continued to follow up and look for people who had not been counted in the first round. Apparently Aaron was one of those people missing when the enumerator came to his door.

Look at the red arrow on the supplemental entry above. The note shows where Aaron really belongs in the Census: "See 4A, line 37." Also note that Aaron has many blank lines above his name. The entry directly above him, with blank lines in between, is of the King household, and therefore the transcription seems to have lumped him into that household. Wrongly, as it turns out.

Page 4A, line 37 

I clicked backward on the Census images from page 8A, where the supplemental entry was listed, to page 4A. Above is a snippet showing number 37 at far left of the Census page. The date of this page was January 13, 1920.

The two people in this household are brother and sister, names that I don't recognize but will have to research to determine if they're at all related to the Work family.

Where Aaron Work was on the day the Census enumerator originally came around, I can't guess. I only know that he was later tracked down and added as a supplemental entry.

If I had accepted the transcription without checking further, I could have been chasing King as a potential FAN club member--and gone down an entirely incorrect path.

Thanks to the GPS, I didn't take a wrong turn. I looked at the image and saw the household where Aaron Work would have been enumerated if he had been home.

In citing my source, I need to mention both the 8A Census page of the supplemental entry and the 4A Census page of the household where the supervisor said he resided in 1920.

Clues in Family-History Books: Caveat Emptor!

Searching for surnames in books on FamilySearch.org

Let me say it yet again: I married my husband for his ancestors! Happily for me, there are many people researching his ancestral surnames.

Even more important, a number of these people have written books about their research into the history of specific families. As valuable as the books are, loaded with useful clues, I have to say caveat emptor.

Inheriting a Larimer Family History

My husband's family has had a copy of a particular LARIMER book in their hands for more than 60 years. They knew the cousin who researched and wrote it. The author wrote eloquently about the Larimer patriarch who was shipwrecked en route from Northern Ireland to America; he listed every descendant he could find or find a name for, and a tid-bit about each person's life.

This author personally contacted my husband's parents in the 1950s to request information about their family. First-hand knowledge!

Yet I know this book has some typos and mistakes. On our family's copy, my late father-in-law or mother-in-law crossed out names and dates that weren't correct and wrote corrections in pen or pencil. The book listed the wrong death date for my husband's grandmother, for instance. In all, I found a dozen handwritten corrections. And those are only the errors my in-laws were aware of.

Nonetheless, these days, when a cousin contacts me about Larimer ancestors, I send this link to the book on the FamilySearch.org website. Anyone can download and read the book for free, from anywhere. Just don't make the mistake of believing everything. Check. It. Yourself. 

In other words, caveat emptor. Keep the Genealogical Proof Standard in mind while reading, and treat the contents as clues.

Searching for a Surname Book

To see whether Family Search has a book about a particular surname, navigate to the page where you can search only the book collection. See the screenshot above for an example where I searched for "McKibbin" and "Indiana" to find anything about a family that intermarried with the Larimer family in that state. (Sometimes creative spelling will turn up additional books to consider.)

At the top of the results is a book tracing the ancestry of a McKibbin family in Indiana and those who intermarried with it. I've downloaded this free book, which was written in 1977 and subsequently submitted to the Family History Library. Now I'm in the process of checking the information against what I've discovered in other records and from other sources.

There are also other books with the McKibbin surname, the Larimer surname, and names that appear in my husband's family tree a few generations back (such as Work, another family that intermarried with Larimer descendants).

Slowly, I'm making my way through the results lists to see which books are relevant to my research. Along the way, I'm gaining an appreciation for the social, historical, and economic context these family-history books add to my knowledge of hubby's family tree.

Colleen Brown Pasquale ("Leaves & Branches" blog) also suggests searching for family histories in Gengophers.com, which links to results at Family History Libraries, FamilySearch, and other sites.

Caveat Emptor: Clues, Not Facts

Until I can verify, the information in any family-history book is a clue, not a fact. But there are some great clues to be found, as long as I keep caveat emptor in mind.

Valentine Leads Me to Relearn Two Lessons

My husband's uncle, Wallis Wood (1905-1957), received a lot of penny postal greeting cards from "Aunt Nellie."

Most, like the Valentine's Day card at left, included the name and/or signature of "Uncle Arthur" (as shown below).

"Aunt Nellie" was Ellen Rachel "Nellie" Wood (1864-1954).

Nellie was a younger sister of Wallis's father. I know a lot about her. I've even written about her here, at least a dozen times over the years.

But this post is not really about the valentine. It's about how I had to relearn two key lessons.

Aunt Nellie married twice

For this week's #52Ancestors prompt of "love," I thought it would be fun to write a bit more about Nellie's two marriages: Her first to Walter and her second to Arthur.

Not long after Y2K, I added Nellie and her two husbands to my Wood family tree. So I clicked on the tree to check on what I know. Uh-oh.

Sources? What sources?

I found their names on the tree. I even had a marriage date and place for her Nellie's first wedding. But no sources.

Not good. I had put Nellie, Walter, and Arthur on my tree before I was consistent about citing my sources.

Now I'm forced to retrace my steps to demonstrate how I "know" what I think I know about Nellie, Walter, and Arthur. But that's not my only lesson.

Always read the original!

Nellie's first marriage, at the age of 20, was to Walter Alfred Lervis Sr. (1860-1897). Or so I had recorded all those years ago. I even had a specific date. But alas, no certificate attached.

After well more than an hour of finding nothing on the usual sites, I decided to look for Walter's son, whose existence I had noted on my tree, along with his wife's name.

Yay! I found his marriage cert. Gulp.

His father's surname is clearly shown, on the original cert, as Walter Lewis. Plugging that in, I immediately came up with Nellie and Walter's marriage cert. It showed LEWIS. Not Lervis. For all these years, I've had this man listed with an incorrect surname. Until now. Shame on me!

Capture the source as an image

Why blog about my mistakes? This re-do has one big advantage: Now that I've found the documentation, I'm doing screen shots and adding the media to my tree as genealogical proof.

This way, if the certs or other sources are ever withdrawn from public view or are otherwise unavailable, the images proving my sources will be on the tree. As images, not just links to online sources.

Clues Buried in Sources on Other Family Trees

Good genealogy researchers trust good sources, right?

And that's why, any time I view other people's family trees on Family Search or Ancestry, I go straight to the sources. This allows me to retrace the steps of any family history researcher and examine the evidence for myself. I analyze and weigh the details of every piece of evidence. If the evidence seems solid, I add it to my tree, cite the source(s), and factor it into my genealogical conclusion.

If a tree has no sources, I move on--nothing to see.  Family stories and relatives' memories are only a starting point--we need actual evidence to construct a reliable family tree. Too often, family trees posted online use other family trees as the source (a la the sources titled "Ancestry Family Trees"). Sorry, not good enough for the Genealogical Proof Standard.

Sources for other people's trees, if any, will be hiding in plain sight.* At the top, a family tree on Family Search, with the button "print family with sources" circled in dark green near the bottom of the image. Click, and up pops a pdf of a family group record followed by pages of full sources (like the ones below).

I compared this tree with a tree on Ancestry, where the sources are in the center column for convenient access. Both of these trees had good sources--different sources, in some cases. By viewing the original documents, not the indexed or transcribed versions, my neighbor and I picked up good clues to research as she follows the Crandall branch of her family tree.

* Thanks very much to reader Marian, who pointed out that on the profile page of each person in Family Search, there are sources listed. Clicking on a fact will bring up any linked sources--then click on the sources to see the documents. I print the list so I can check which I have and which I haven't seen before by comparing with my tree.

PS: Yes, my neighbor knows about the Crandall Family Association. She's actually done a ton of research. We were spot-checking dates and spelling by looking at sources connected with other people's trees.

PPS: Above, from a tree that will be nameless (to protect the guilty), one reason why I distrust trees without sources. Jean must have had quite a wedding in 1805, considering she's listed as dead by 1790.

Weighing the Evidence on Grandpa's Birthplace

Six of my Burk (aka Berg/Berk/Birk/Burke) ancestors came to North America from Lithuania. The oldest of the siblings, Abraham, settled in Montreal. All the others lived for decades in New York City.

In birth order, they were:

• Abraham Berk (1877-1962)
• Nellie Block (1878-1950)
• Isaac Burk (1882-1943) - Hi, Grandpa!
• Meyer Berg (1883-1981)
• Jennie Birk (1890-1972)
• Max (Matel) Berk (1892-1953)

Where, exactly, were these Litvak ancestors from? I've been weighing the evidence, following the Evidence Explained principles. Fortunately for me, the evidence is quite compelling in favor of one birthplace for all the siblings.

Of course I'm putting the most weight on primary (original) sources created by "someone with first hand knowledge . . . created at or about the time an event occurred." Primary information (from original sources) tends to be more reliable, even though the person who provided the info may not remember correctly or may answer inaccurately for some other reason.

I've assembled the following evidence about the siblings' birthplace.

1. Abraham Berk's Canadian naturalization petition listed Gordz, Kovno, Russia as his birthplace. When Abraham entered America in 1919 to visit his brother Isaac, he said he was born in Gorst-Kovna-Russia. Abraham provided all this info.
2. Nellie Block never declared any birthplace that I can find, unfortunately. I don't believe she ever married, nor did she apply for Social Security or naturalization. 
3. Isaac Burk told US border officials in 1904 that he was born in Gerst, Russia, when he entered America from Canada. His 1939 naturalization papers and WWII draft registration show Lithuania as his birthplace (Isaac provided the info). Grandpa Isaac was buried in a cemetery plot that's part of the Sons of Telsh society. That adds to the indirect evidence in a small way.
4. Meyer Berg's passenger manifest from 1903 shows Gelsen, Kovno as his most recent residence. His WWI draft record shows Gorsd, Russia as his birthplace; his WWII draft record shows Gorso, Russia as his birthplace. Meyer's naturalization petition from 1920 shows his birthplace as Kovna, Russia. Meyer provided this info.
5. Jennie Birk's 1966 passport lists Lithuania as her birthplace. Her husband Paul Salkowitz listed Gardzai, Lithuania, as his birthplace on naturalization papers, but didn't show anything for her birthplace. Best of all, Jennie's marriage license from 1919 shows Garsden, Russia as her birthplace, info provided by her.
6. Max Berk's 1920 naturalization petition shows Kovno, Russia as his birthplace. His 1906 passenger manifest shows Korst as his last residence. Max provided this info.

According to the Jewish Genealogy Communities Database, nearly all of these places are, essentially, other names for one place: Gargzdai, Lithuania (sometimes not spelled correctly or only spelled phonetically).

This evidence leads me to conclude that Grandpa Isaac and his siblings came from Gargzdai. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Plus I'm going to change the family tree so that every one of the siblings shows this as their birthplace.