Logical?

[peter]

I did say above that it would be unwise to assume everything in "official" documents must be true, and no, I don't think I would be surprised at how naïve some researchers can be - I've seen it enough times! But that wouldn't make me go as far as to say documentary evidence must always be regarded as suspect, only that we should always be alert to the possibility that it sometimes may be.

The point is that without any other evidence you can't know which details are correct and which ones aren't. And sometimes evidence that appears to confirm a detail merely incorporates the same error, as in the case of someone who marries twice but gives the same ficticious name for their father.

I couldn't honestly say that this has been my experience though I have, of course, found errors. Mostly these have been minor age discrepancies - and some that are maybe not so minor - and it is not uncommon for people born illegitimate to either invent a father or to give only partially correct details. But it does vary in different places, and within different families.

There is so much scope for error in marriage entries after 1837. Either or both parties could give the wrong age, or claim to be 'of full age' when they're not. Even if the father's name is correct the occupation might be wrong: someone out of work could be described as a gentleman, an ag lab might be upgraded to farmer. There's also the matter of where the couple were living: research by Professor Probert has found that even if they gave the same address it didn't mean they were co-habiting. Middle names may not appear on the individual's birth certificate, or in the baptism register (or vice versa).

We're so used to these small discrepancies that we often don't notice them, but less experienced researchers might put great store by them.

Yes, I've found plenty of errors in original documents, and you're right that when viewing one event in isolation any mistake there is more likely to mislead. I would still say that such errors only appear in a relatively small proportion of record entries, though again it does vary. I remember once extracting all references to a particular surname from an 18th century Wiltshire register and commenting afterwards that either men in that parish changed their wives like some people changed their socks, or the clerk was prone to making mistakes! But I remember that occasion because it was exceptional.

The number of instances you found in a single parish might be exceptional, but this type of error is far from unusual. It's actually easier to diagnose these errors when there are a lot of them - when there are, or may be, isolated cases they're much more difficult to detect. Family reconstitution can help, but it's a time-consuming process.