{"id":35923,"date":"2026-08-23T06:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T11:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=35923"},"modified":"2026-08-23T06:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T11:57:11","slug":"what-it-says-versus-what-you-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/23\/what-it-says-versus-what-you-want\/","title":{"rendered":"What It Says Versus What You Want"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"750\" src=\"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/riley-what-it-does-not-say.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9392\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.0666666666666667;width:800px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/riley-what-it-does-not-say.jpg 800w, https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/riley-what-it-does-not-say-300x281.jpg 300w, https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/riley-what-it-does-not-say-768x720.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s always advised to determine what the record is actually saying\u2013without inferring statements that are not supported directly by what is in the document, consistent record-keeping practices, state or federal law, etc.&nbsp; Don\u2019t put statements in records that are not there and ask yourself \u201cdoes the document&nbsp;<em>really<\/em>&nbsp;say\u201d that or am I just wanting it to? Pre-1880 US Census records don\u2019t provide proof (at least not by themselves) of parent-child relationships, heirs to an estate are not necessarily children, paying property taxes in a location does not imply residence there, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Be dogged in your approach to understanding what records say\u2013as Riley suggests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While he never says he wants a treat, that\u2019s usually a safe bet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s always advised to determine what the record is actually saying\u2013without inferring statements that are not supported directly by what is in the document, consistent record-keeping practices, state or federal law, etc.&nbsp; Don\u2019t put statements in records that are not there and ask yourself \u201cdoes the document&nbsp;really&nbsp;say\u201d that or am I just wanting it to? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153979"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}