Thanks to Marketta, who asks what we mean by "genealogical clues". My answer will likely start a fire-storm, but so be it.

In short, there ain't no such animal as a "clue".  There is only evidence.  Every single scrap, word, document, memento, citation, entry in a courthouse or archive, and every recollection and anecdote of every family member or acquaintance that in ANY way tends to establish some certain lineage IS evidence, and each bit of that evidence varies, not in kind, but only in reliability and the weight to be accorded that material.

We gather all those pieces of evidence that we can find; some very powerful and convincing and other bits very weak or perhaps even valueless.  Still, it all is evidence, and when our little pile of evidence is big and weighty enough, we say we have "proved" the hypothesis (relationship).  

UNLESS we are teaching, that is all there is to the whole matter of evidence and proof. To waste time, thought, and e-mail space hunting for appropriate labels or deciding whether this or that scrap of evidence is primary, secondary, direct, indirect, hearsay, circumstantial, or any other of those labels some folks attach, is simply silly.

In research - ours and all other - reliability and weight are the sole determining factors as to what we should heed and what we should ignore or set aside. That is true, no matter who provides that evidence, where it was found, or what it may have been called by some abstractor or family history writer.

Finally, as you consider the above, be aware of a most fundamental and basic tenet evidence.  We label some bits of evidence as hearsay (or circumstantial, or etc.) because those are unreliable; we do NOT say those are unreliable because such are hearsay. 

Paul

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