Hi, Friend Lou.  I ask you, simply, by hunting up a label for some bit of evidence (other than when teaching, as I said in my explanation) what have you told us about the quality or weightiness of any evidence?  Nothing, zero, zip, nada. 

How is it atall helpful to tell any researcher, newbie or old timer, that a 17th Century Virginia court order book is "primary"?  

Why not help those folks understand by telling those folks that such materials rank very high in weight and reliability because such come to us from a time and place very near the actual event and that the clerk likely had no reason to lie (and probably did not have his fingers crossed)?

Oh, and by the way, those very same order books are almost ALL pure and unadulterated hearsay. So, for that reason shall we discard those from our piles of evidence?  Of course not. So, again, of what value the label "hearsay" or "primary"?

Paul    


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