Content type
Wiki explainer
Primary use
Use this page to compare source lanes, place anchors, and wording limits before repeating a historical claim as settled.
What this page adds
It should add source-aware context, place anchors, wording limits, and a clearer next step than a raw claim or isolated source link can provide.
Evidence level
Starter
Claim status
Open
You should leave with a narrower question, a clearer place context, and a better sense of what the current source trail can support.
Overview
A source table helps a researcher slow down before public copy is written. Each row should keep the source, exact clue, interpretation, evidence level, claim status, privacy risk, and next check separate.
What this page adds
- It turns a topic, place, or naming question into a source-led learning page instead of leaving it as a vague claim or isolated citation.
- It separates what the current record can support from what still needs comparison, correction, or stronger evidence.
- It gives readers a next-step research path instead of pretending the page is the last word.
What this helps you learn
- A source table makes strong claims reviewable by showing which source supports which sentence.
- The table can hold census, church, land, military, pension, court, newspaper, map, oral-history, DNA-lead, and place-hub clues without collapsing them into one proof.
- It is especially useful for Foundational Black Americans research where records may conflict, use harmful language, or leave gaps.
Careful claims
- Do not treat a completed table as certification of identity, ancestry, tribe, nationality, DNA conclusions, legal status, descent, or membership.
- Do not publish private source images, living-person details, current addresses, or contact information just because they appear in a table.
- Do not erase uncertainty; keep open, debated, and source-needed rows visible.
Research path
- Create columns for citation, date, place, people named, exact clue, interpretation, claim supported, evidence level, privacy risk, and next check.
- Add a separate row when one source supports more than one claim.
- Move sensitive claims to Source Review before turning the table into public prose.
Reader quality check
- Can you name the exact place, period, institution, or source type this page is using?
- Can you separate a direct source detail from an interpretation or community-memory reading?
- Can you identify which sentence would need a Source Table, Place Packet, or Claim Review Card before reuse?
- Can you explain what would change the wording: a new source, a contradiction, a boundary change, a name variant, or a privacy concern?
Before reusing this page
- Copy the claim only with its evidence label, place context, and uncertainty note.
- Check whether the page is explaining a source, a memory lane, an interpretation, or a working hypothesis.
- Use Source Review before turning the page into stronger identity, ancestry, legal-status, descent, DNA, membership, or Nation-language wording.
- Use Community Notes or Fact Check if a missing source, changed boundary, name variation, or contradiction would alter the public wording.
Source trail
- FOBA Source Review – Internal review workflow for claim wording.
- FOBA Evidence Gates – Internal evidence-level guide.
- FOBA Safe Sharing – Privacy guardrails.
What remains open
This starter should be treated as a working research surface. Dates, naming, family continuity, identity-adjacent conclusions, and disputed interpretation may still need Source Review, Fact Check, Community Notes, or stronger corroboration.
Evidence note: This starter entry is educational. Add sources, dates, maps, Community Notes, and Fact Checks as research develops.