Primary information is a statement about an event made by a person who had first hand knowledge of that event and who made that statement relatively close to when the event took place and when their memory was still good.
Generally speaking, that is. People can provide primary information years after an event, but their memory has to be good in order to remember details of an event. Sometimes witnesses’ memories are not accurate.
Is it always possible to get primary information? No. Sometimes there simply was no record created with primary information.
This post on Rootdig provides a more detailed example of how one original source with primary information contradicted all the others with secondary information.
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