I have been using Evidentia for about two years now, and while I love the program I will admit I am not a power user.  While I was reading several blogs today I came across one on the Evidentia site where Ed Thompson, the creator of the software, decided to start a new project called the Evidentia Experiment.  I decided I am going to do the same thing.

For those who are not familiar with Evidentia, it is a software program designed for the genealogical community to assist in creating proof arguments and analyzing evidence while following the Genealogical Proof Standard.  It also forces you to cite your sources as you add evidence with templates that follow the Evidence Explained model by Elizabeth Shown Mills.

So the idea behind the Evidentia Experiment is to document five generations beginning with yourself, and provide at least one document supporting evidence of the person’s birth, one document of the person’s death, if relevant, one document of marriage, one document of the person’s burial location, and each census record the person appears in.

Each record will be fully and completely cataloged and tagged with all relevant information.  A proof will be created for each event; birth, marriage, death, burial, and relationship with father and mother.

So five generations will be yourself, your parents, your grandparents, your great grandparents, and your great x2 grandparents.

I decided this Evidentia Experiment would be a great way for me to become more familiar with the software and creating proof arguments, so, I am going for it as well. Also in keeping with Ed’s idea, I am going to time myself during the whole process to see just how quick it is, although unlike him, I plan to manually enter each of the sources and attach an image to the source as well.

I will keep y’all updated as I try this.

You can learn more about the Evidentia Experiment and Ed’s progress on their blog.