Talk:Cecil Mack

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Birth year

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

This article, "Richard Cecil McPherson (Cecil Mack)",^[1] argues for an 1872 birth date, but I don't think blogger Bill Edwards fits the Wikipedia definition of a reliable source, and although he cites the 1880 census I don't know how to look up his census record to validate Edwards's reasoning. But someone who knows how to look up names in the census may be able to double-check Edwards's reasoning. —Steve98052 (talk) 23:55, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I've used that site before and - although not strictly a reliable source - in my opinion it is, in fact, very well researched and likely to give accurate information (far more likely, in fact, than many supposedly more "reliable" sites like Allmusic). However, in this case it says only that "The mathematically suggested year of 1872 will be accepted for this essay as the most probable." There certainly was a Richard McPherson, aged 7, in Portsmouth, Virginia - here if you have an Ancestry.com subscription - in the 1880 census. However, McPherson's 1936 social security application here gave his date of birth as November 6, 1880. This says 1883. This says 1871. It's the case for many early African-American musicians (for example, blues musicians) that there is considerable uncertainty over their birth details, and what I tend to do in articles is to summarise the conflicting information from sources in the text, or sometimes in a footnote. I think that's what we should do here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:01, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I got that impression about the blog too. (I've encountered other sites that are strongly researched but not "reliable" by the formal Wikipedia definition.) I assume that the Ancestry site accurately aggregates its sources, but when its sources have conflicting information it's hard to tell. Noting conflicting information in the text or a footnote does seem like good policy. — Steve98052 (talk) 22:43, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

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