Evidentia

[Kim]

I'm curious about whether anyone here has ever tried Evidentia. I've heard mentions of the software several times recently in my reading and listening to genealogy podcasts. It sounds interesting, but it also sounds like it duplicates a lot of what I do with Reunion and will take extra time and work to maintain.

Has anyone used it, and if so, what do you think of it?
Here's a link for anyone unfamiliar with the software.

http://evidentiasoftware.com

[AE Palmer]

Re: Evidentia

I'm curious about whether anyone here has ever tried Evidentia. I've heard mentions of the software several times recently in my reading and listening to genealogy podcasts. It sounds interesting, but it also sounds like it duplicates a lot of what I do with Reunion and will take extra time and work to maintain.

Has anyone used it, and if so, what do you think of it?
Here's a link for anyone unfamiliar with the software.
http://evidentiasoftware.com

Having used Evidentia, I can confirm that its concept of focusing on sources rather than people is novel and has the potential to provide very well documented genealogical reports. That said, it’s convoluted methodology of inputting data makes it difficult to use. Moreover, its GEDCOM import function does not seem to work like I think it should.

What little experience I have had with Evidentia is that it is excellent at letting the user focus on brick walls. Is it a heavy-weight contender for Reunion? Not yet.

[Kim]

Re: Evidentia

Having used Evidentia, I can confirm that its concept of focusing on sources rather than people is novel and has the potential to provide very well documented genealogical reports. That said, it’s convoluted methodology of inputting data makes it difficult to use. Moreover, its GEDCOM import function does not seem to work like I think it should.

What little experience I have had with Evidentia is that it is excellent at letting the user focus on brick walls. Is it a heavy-weight contender for Reunion? Not yet.

Thanks for you input. I was thinking of it as a supplement to Reunion and not a replacement. I've watched a couple of the instructional videos and it seems interesting, and helpful in documenting the reasoning behind linking people. I'm just not sure it would be worth the expenditure of time to add all my sources in there. I may download the trial and play with it to see what I think.

[mjashby]

Re: Evidentia

Kim,

I have used Evidentia, but not to any great degree, mainly because of the time required and the considerable duplication of effort. I think you will find, if you use the trial copy, that the concept behind Evidentia is sound, but the detailed input required can be tedious, because of the step approach to recording and analysing the evidence; then recording your arguments and conclusions on every fact prior to committing that conclusion to your Family Tree Program (Reunion); and then still having to record all the accepted evidence and conclusions a second time in that software as your 'final' record.

When working through the Evidentia approach, you will probably fairly quickly realise that everything that is possible in that software could probably be carried out in Reunion and/or most other quality Family Tree programs with good use and analysis of evidence notes and 'To Do' lists to highlight further research needs. It's really the structure and the disciplined approach that Evidentia uses that is 'different'; and that approach can be very useful when trying to sort out conflicting facts/evidence, or when trying to 'break down brick walls' by piecing together a range of facts and source data you've gathered, without committing tentative information as apparently 'proven' facts/family structures in your Family Tree software.

It's probably of less value to document everything separately with large family tree studies than it may be with analysing the evidence for relatively small numbers of individuals, because of the sheer volume of data you would need to record in the former case. However, the approach Evidentia promotes and supports can be very useful where you need to build a picture of the range of evidence you hold relating to a relatively small number of people and to flag the further research that may also be needed to before reaching a reliable conclusion about questionable facts or relationships. It can also be useful to have a record of why, when and how you reached a certain conclusion if/when you uncover further evidence which may, or may not support the original conclusion.

Mervyn

[Kim]

Re: Evidentia

Kim,
I have used Evidentia, but not to any great degree, mainly because of the time required and the considerable duplication of effort.
Mervyn

That is my big fear...that there is so much duplication of effort. It seems like it would be a good system for tracking my line of reasoning. I'm finding I have no idea how I reached some conclusions I made when I started 10 years ago, and will probably have to 'redo' because I think I confused to people with the same obscure name. But while it would be helpful for a situation like this, I'm not sure I'd be motivated to reenter every document I own. I will probably hold of for a bit and then give it a try later this fall.

[Kim]

Re: Evidentia

Just an update on my Evidentia experiment. It lasted all of two days!

As others mentioned, the concept is novel, and perhaps useful if used sporadically when you are dealing with a specific problem. But entering the data is time consuming and a massive duplication of effort to what I do with Reunion. I started with an obituary and spent probably an hour entering data and still was not done, so I moved to something else. An obit may not have been the best place to start, given the wealth of information contained in one. But the bottom line is, I don't think there is anything here that I can't do with Reunion. The main benefit I see is that Evidentia forces me to think about each piece of data and each conclusion I draw and saves the reasoning. I already do the first two steps. The thing I am not so good at is documenting my line of reasoning, but with a little effort I can do that in a note, and of course, in many cases it is not necessary as the conclusion is so obvious.

Bottom line...I won't be buying Evidentia.