The way in which you justify your conclusions concerning a branch of your family tree has much in common with a formalmathematical proof. Each one depends upon assembling demonstrated (and defensible) facts and then proceeding from them via a path of inexorable logic to an inevitable conclusion. But they share far more than that. Both a genealogical argument and a mathematical proof are deliberately structured to obscure the false starts, blind alleys and mistaken identifications that make each subject … Continue reading