How We Verify
The Methodology
The Archive is a record of memory and a record of how we know what we know. This page sets out, in plain language, the editorial discipline that stands behind every name preserved here.
Honored Ancestors holds two registers of methodology — one that has produced the editorial archive of more than eight hundred entries already in place, and a second, more rigorous register reserved for Commissioned Memorials and marked publicly with the gold Verified seal. Both registers share the same first principle: every fact stated as fact is corroborated before it enters the permanent record.
A third register, in preparation, will apply this discipline to Free Family Research — AI-assisted ancestor research offered to any family at no charge, with the same evidentiary marking. Notified at launch.
— Editorial Archive —
How the editorial record is composed
The editorial archive is the work of the institution itself — names selected, researched, and placed by our editorial team in deliberate, theme-organised editorial waves. Every entry passes through the following discipline before it is placed:
- Source consultation. At minimum two independent published sources are consulted for every entry — typically reference works, scholarly articles, archival materials, or primary documents where available. The editorial team reads more than it cites; the published entry reflects only what survives that comparison.
- Composition with restraint. The editorial register is documentary — declarative sentences, dates in long form, places by their proper names, accomplishments stated rather than embellished. The intent is the standing record an institution keeps about itself.
- Permanence pinning. Once placed, every editorial entry is pinned to the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) by our own node so that a verifiable snapshot survives independent of any single web host. The content identifier appears on every memorial page; anyone may fetch the snapshot from any public gateway.
- Correction protocol. Errors, when found, are corrected in place, the previous version is preserved as an IPFS snapshot, and the correction is logged with date and substance. The Archive's commitment is not infallibility but the willingness to be accountable to the record.
The editorial methodology has produced more than eight hundred entries to date and is the methodology behind every name now placed in The Great Archive.
— The Verified Mark · Commissioned Memorials —
A higher standard, marked publicly
Commissioned Memorials — entries our editorial team researches, drafts, and verifies on behalf of a family at their request — carry the Verified mark: a small gold seal that distinguishes them as having met an additional, declared standard. The Verified mark is the brand promise of a Commissioned Memorial. It is not given lightly.
The Verified mark requires:
- The two-source rule, applied strictly. Every fact stated as fact in a Commissioned Memorial is corroborated by at least two independent sources. Where the fact concerns the person's life rather than the public record — relations, employment history, family stories — a family member acts as one of the two sources, identified by relationship in the attestation.
- An IPFS-pinned attestation document. Each Commissioned Memorial is accompanied by a separately-pinned attestation document containing the full citation set, source links where available, and any noted ambiguities or contested points. The attestation's content identifier is published alongside the memorial's.
- A signed editor's methodology note. The editor responsible for the memorial signs a brief note describing the research process, the sources consulted, and any judgement calls made. The note becomes part of the published record.
- Family corroboration of personal details. Before publication, the family commissioning the memorial reviews the draft. Personal details — names of relations, places of family residence, employment particulars — are corroborated against family knowledge. Disputed details are either resolved with additional sources or marked clearly as family attestation.
A Commission begins with the Submission Advisor. The Verified mark is added at publication; no entry carries the mark before the methodology has been applied.
Why the discipline matters
A family bringing forward an ancestor's name does not need a tradition that takes its work lightly. A scholar consulting the Archive does not need a record whose sourcing is opaque. Anyone who will read the Archive fifty years from now does not need to wonder whether what is written here was checked.
The institution applies the same first principle to every name, whether the entry is editorial or commissioned: the record states what we know, not what we believe. The Verified mark publicly signals where the discipline has been most rigorously applied.