Talk:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Suspicious Entries

What to do

My searches regarding the people I have put into this list have been very preliminary so far, relying mostly on Google. Perhaps if some of these get found, they can be moved to a separate list ("Obscure Entries?") with a note on the independent reference? Note that there is a lot on some genealogical sites that derives from Appletons', so many things that at first appear to be independent references can be derivations made by some compiler or another. And some of these may be buried in a mound of others with the same name. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 14:32, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I think if independent (of Appletons') biographical information is found on any of the people in this list, the citation should be noted in extra_notes in the header, or if a link is available, use other_projects, and the entry should be removed from this list. The entry should already be in one of the volume lists. A list of "obscure entries" doesn't seem useful to me now. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 16:20, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Dobson and Barnhart went to the trouble of listing "suspicious" entries that they weren't ready to call "fictitious." Those should be listed here, except of course the one suspicious entry of Barnhart that Dobson found independent information for. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 16:25, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

The question comes to mind what constitutes something independent of Appletons' which indicates a person really exists. I would say an entry in a book written before 1886 (the date of first publication of ACAB) which has data that indicates a match with the subject being examined. A later book is a possibility if it has additional information not present in Appletons'. I think the language used is irrelevant, so if similar information is found in another language in a book written 1886 or after, I don't think this should remove an item from the suspicious category. The articles listing fictitious entries can supply some guidance.

Dobson just threw up his hands with regard to the entries on Indians of the Americas, and having struggled with some of them I can see why. The name of a tribe, chief and nation sometimes seem to get intertwined. A name in ACAB will appear as the name of a tribe or a nation elsewhere. These entries on Indians of the Americas seem worthwhile to pursue, but genuine information may be somewhat difficult to extract. I'm actually not sure that completely phony entries are a problem here. I don't think any have been identified, but it is much more difficult for this genre. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 17:09, 4 January 2012 (UTC)