When we’re researching, we are constantly reviewing information that we’ve found, analyzing it on a number of levels, and When we’re researching, we are constantly reviewing information that we’ve found, analyzing it on a number of levels, and combining it with other information to form conclusions. This is the only way to ensure that the people we put into our family tree are actually related to us. Every time we find information and develop a theory, it is critical that it pass the White Queen Test. I first learned about the test years ago, from my friends Robert Charles Anderson and Patricia Law Hatcher. The test is based on characters in a book by Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll.
Millions of people around the world are researching their family history. With so much information available and so many options for research, it can easily get overwhelming. I'm Michael Leclerc, the Genealogy Professor. And I want to share with you my decades of experience in both the nonprofit genealogy world and at a genealogy tech company as a researcher, author, editor, speaker, and content developer. I'm here to give you actionable tips on how to be a better genealogist.
Today we're going to talk about one of the most important tests you can put your research through to ensure that you've identified the right people in your family, the White Queen Test. When we're researching, we're constantly reviewing information that we've found, analyzing it on a number of levels and combining it with other information to form conclusions. This is the only way to ensure that the people we put into our family tree are actually related to us. Every time we find information and develop a theory, it's critical that it pass the White Queen Test. I first learned about the test years ago from my friends, Robert Charles Anderson and Patricia Law Hatcher. The test is based on characters in a book by Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll. While we're very familiar with his first book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, published in 1865, we often forget that there were others in the series. Five books in total. The White Queen appears in the first sequel Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, which was published six years after the original.
The White Queen is also featured in Disney's well-known live action films, Alice in Wonderland and Into the Looking Glass. The original stories were combined and rewritten for these films. In the original Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, Alice has the following interaction with the Queen.
"That's the way it's done." The Queen said with great decision. "Nobody can do two things at once, you know. Let's consider your age to begin with. How old are you?" "I'm seven and a half exactly." "You needn't say exactually," the Queen remarked. "I can believe it without that. Now I'll give you something to believe. I'm just 101, five months and a day." "I can't believe that." Said Alice. "Can't you?" Said the Queen in a pitying tone. "Try again. Draw a long breath and shut your eyes." Alice laughed. "There's no use trying." She said. "One can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had much practice." Said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
In our test, we pattern ourselves after the White Queen. We look at our conclusions and analyze them. We ask ourselves, what would I have to believe in order for this conclusion to be untrue? The more incredible things that must be believed for your conclusion to be false, the more sound your conclusion is. Conversely, if more unbelievable things are needed for the conclusions to be true or if fewer unbelievable circumstances are needed for it to be false, it may be necessary to conduct additional research and collect more evidence to verify your theory. I have one memorable example of applying the White Queen Test in research in my own family. My seventh great grandfather was taken captive during the colonial wars and carried to Quebec around 1703, 1704. He married as “Joseph Ouabard” at Cap-Saint-Ignace in 1725 to a French Canadian Catholic woman named Marie Charlotte Guillet.
The marriage record gives his parents names as Nicolas and Marie. His brother, Jean-Baptiste was married there in 1730 to Marie Helene Hélène Comperon Lavergne dit Boiry.
French Canadian researchers had suggested that the brothers were from Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Sons of a congregational minister from Gloucester, the furthest town out on Cape Ann. There is neither a baptism nor a civil record of birth for any child of the couple. There's no record of any raid on the town of Gloucester or any nearby towns. In order for this identification to be true, we would need to believe the following.
While this is not quite the six unbelievable things that the White Queen believes before breakfast, it is several items. Not only that, but these issues are of significant consequence. This situation calls for additional research and a re-evaluation of the evidence.
A new approach was necessary. Instead of working with a proposed identification, I started from scratch. Native raids on the English settlements were very traumatic experiences. Not only did they usually involve deaths and injuries to men, women, and children, they often involved the kidnapping of women and children. Many of whom were never to be seen or heard from again. Because of this, they're usually well-documented in the historical record. I started the new research by looking for raids that occurred during the period when the Ouabard boys first appeared in Quebec records.
It didn't take long to find a raid on the settlements of Cape Porpoise and Purpoodock in Maine. It was a particularly savage attack. The family of Michael Weber was extremely hard hit. The attack took place while he was away from the home. The natives murdered his pregnant wife and ripped the fetus from her womb and kidnapped four of their children. Their eldest son, Michael escaped and was repatriated. Their daughter, Elizabeth was taken to Montreal where she married Paul “Hotesse.” Born Paul Otis, he had been captured from the town of Dover, New Hampshire years earlier.
After extensive research, I was able to find the evidence I needed to prove that the Ouabard boys were the sons of Michael Weber. And it became an article I published in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register. All of this because the original work failed to pass the White Queen test. So make sure when you're doing your own research, that you put it through the process to see how many unbelievable things are involved in your own conclusions.
Thanks for joining me for today's podcast. For more tips and techniques, visit www.genprof.net for additional resources. That's www.G-E-N-P-R-O-F.net. You can subscribe to extra content in the education center that will help show you how to be a better genealogist.