Lineage dossiers
Document a family line generation by generation with source citations, conflicts, maps and unresolved questions.
File KI-097 / fictional practice
Genealogy / archival research / evidence
Every family story deserves footnotes.
Kinship Index researches family histories as evidence problems: define the claim, find independent sources, reconcile contradictions and preserve the chain from conclusion back to record.
Records cited: 146Open questions: 7Locations: 12Confidence: stated per claim
About / proof standard
The goal is not a bigger tree. It is a tree you can explain.
Names repeat, spellings drift and ages move. We identify people through clusters of relationships, places, occupations and records rather than one convenient match.
Conflicting evidence stays in the file. We show which source is closest to the event, which was informant-led and why one interpretation is stronger.
Every narrative conclusion links back to a citation or is labelled as inference, testimony or open question. Readability never outranks traceability.
Offerings / research briefs
Migration research
Trace movement across districts and borders using passenger, permit, census, land, employment and community records.
House histories
Reconstruct who occupied a property, how tenure changed and what the address reveals about neighbourhood and family life.
Archive strategy
Turn an inherited box of photographs, letters and certificates into an indexed research collection with next-step questions.
Process / evidence chain
From question to cited conclusion.
- 01
Frame the claim
Define exactly what needs proving: identity, parentage, residence, migration, property, relationship or chronology.
- 02
Build the source plan
List record groups by place, period and likely creator before searching names at random.
- 03
Search the cluster
Research associates, witnesses, neighbours and institutions when the subject alone is ambiguous or absent.
- 04
Correlate evidence
Create a timeline, compare independent records and document conflicts instead of selecting the neatest version.
- 05
Write the proof
Present the conclusion, reasoning, citations, confidence and remaining questions in a dossier another researcher can audit.
Projects / dossier 31
The Maseko family moved twice in the records before they moved on the map.
A fictional family account placed Thandi Maseko's grandparents in one district from 1910. Land records, baptism witnesses and school registers instead showed two households with the same surname. Correlating occupations and witnesses separated the families and moved the correct line 84 kilometres east between 1918 and 1922.
146
sources
38
people resolved
12
locations
7
open questions
Evidence extract / claim 07
Residence shifted between the 1918 tax roll and 1922 school admission.
Corroborated by the same occupation, spouse name and two recurring witnesses. Conflicting 1910 oral date retained as family testimony, not discarded.
[31] District tax roll, 1918, fol. 44.
[42] St. Mark register, witness column, 1920.
[57] East Ridge School admissions, 1922, no. 188.
8,420
fictional citations indexed
91%
conclusions with 2+ independent sources
14
archive systems used regularly
100%
uncertain claims labelled
People / researchers
Researchers who show their working.
Naledi Mase
Principal genealogist
Southern African civil, land and church records; proof arguments.
Owen Mercer
Archive researcher
British, maritime and migration collections; handwriting and source context.
Priya Shah
Records & maps specialist
Property chains, GIS correlation, address history and collection indexing.
Insights / archive notes
The spelling is evidence, not identity
Clerks wrote what they heard, languages changed and families adapted names. Exact spelling can exclude the right person as easily as it finds them.
Witnesses can be more useful than parents
Recurring baptism, marriage and probate witnesses often reveal kinship networks that direct relationships fail to state explicitly.
A timeline exposes impossible trees
Two records that look individually plausible may become impossible when births, travel, occupations and addresses are placed on one chronology.
Objections / research questions
What can the record really support?
Can you prove every family story?
No. Some claims remain unresolved. We separate documented facts, strong inferences, family testimony and open questions so uncertainty is visible instead of edited out of the narrative.
Do DNA matches replace records?
No. DNA can support or challenge a hypothesis, but useful conclusions usually come from combining genetic evidence with civil, church, land, probate, newspaper and migration records.
What if records were destroyed or never created?
We widen the question. Neighbours, witnesses, employers, land parcels, school registers, court files and cluster research can sometimes reconstruct a life indirectly. If the gap remains, the dossier says so.
Contact / conversion
Start with one person, one place and one thing you believe is true.
Send the known facts, copies of what you already hold and the question you want answered. We will return a scoped research brief before opening archives.
research@kinshipindex.exampleResearch is quoted by question, not by promise of an answer.