The lineage verification methodology,applied.
Three classes of claim enter the verification workflow — informal inheritance claims, credentialed genealogical documentation, and public lineage sources. Each is graded against the Genealogical Proof Standard, held by a single custodian, sealed against the same standing posture that closes every Threadkin engagement.
The methodology is bounded on purpose. A lineage claim is not what the family remembers; it is what the chain can cite at each named handoff. The dossier records what was traced, against which archive, under which citation form — and what the chain is not claiming about the absent record.
What is verified
Three classes of claim,Each graded against the Genealogical Proof Standard.
A lineage verification does not run on oral memory, on a derivative tree, or on a user-generated compendium. It runs on primary sources named to the call number — civil registers, parish registers, immigration manifests, public PSC and business-register entries — and on the credentialed genealogical work that holds the chain together. The three classes below define what enters the workflow; the Limits § below defines what the workflow does not promise.
The three classes, in the order they enter the workflow:
Informal inheritance claims
01The first class is the family-held claim — the will-less handoff by which a landed property, a partnership share, or a family office passed from one generation to the next without a written instrument. Memory is the lead, not the proof. The dossier captures the claim exactly as the family holds it — who told whom, when, on what occasion — and treats it as a lead to be confirmed against a primary record. A claim that is not confirmed against a primary source is held on the record as an unverified family statement; it does not become a citation.
Credentialed genealogical documentation
02Credentialed genealogical work is the second and load-bearing class. Every record that enters the dossier is read against the Genealogical Proof Standard: a primary source is named, the holding repository is named, the image or folio identifier is noted, the access date is logged, and a conflict log is held for any record that disagrees with another. The credentialed reading is what the chain travels on; the credentialed reading is also where the methodology is held to its standard — and where an absent record is named as an absent record, not substituted for.
Public lineage sources
03The third class is the open public record — registries that publish family-relevant entries without a credentialed reader being required to access them. UK Companies House PSC entries, the EU business register roll-up (Handelsregister, Registre du Commerce et des Sociétés, registro delle imprese), parish registers on the open diocesan index, and civil registers on the open national index all count as primary-source derivatives of family-level disclosure. The dossier records the public entry verbatim, names the derivative on the broker side that re-publishes it, and binds the chain back at the primary source rather than at the search-result alias.
What the verification does not promise.The boundary, named.
The three classes above are what the verification methodology actually does. The three points below are what the methodology does NOT promise. Reading them is part of the practice — lineage verification is a credentialed-tracing methodology; it is not a licensed-fielded investigation, and it does not handle protected personal data without consent.
§ ii
No licensed investigation until Victorian clearance is in place.
Field investigation activities — interviews, on-site record retrieval, observation work — are outside the published method until the assigned practitioner holds the Victorian private investigator licence (or the equivalent licence in the jurisdiction where activity would occur). This page describes desk-based review of named primary sources and public registers; it does not invite fielded work.
No handling of protected or sensitive personal data without consent.
Special-category personal data — health, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data, data concerning sexual orientation or sex life — is not collected, stored, or graded against the dossier without the subject's recorded consent, captured at intake or, where the surface appears mid-engagement, before the field is opened. Where consent is withheld, the field is left closed and the dossier records the closed field rather than the substitute.
Credentialed tracing, not a licensed-fielded service.
Lineage verification is a credentialed-tracing methodology. The work opens against a brief, runs against the Genealogical Proof Standard, and closes against a sealed dossier. It is not a licensed-fielded investigation — interviews, surveillance-grade work, on-the-ground record retrieval — until the licence is in place. The boundary is the part the methodology holds to: a brief that calls for fielded investigative work is acknowledged, but the fielded portion opens only against the licence; the tracing portion is what the engagement runs on until then.
Read this boundary with the common questions. Use contact for a general question about the published method.
Begin a scope
One chain.
Held to the standard.
This page describes the verification method: credentialed records are reviewed at primary sources, public records at named registers, and the evidence chain is identified at each handoff.
Lineage verification
Held to the standard.
Three classes — informal, credentialed, public — graded against the Genealogical Proof Standard; the boundary held above the chain, never below it.
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