What degree of confidence can you have in any information?
Information can go wrong at just about any moment, and incorrect information has a really long half life…
It is amazing how long incorrect information can survive. It can last for centuries especially if it gets tied into beliefs in some way.
Inaccurate information can survive a long time too. Databases as record of truth are only as good as the data that was entered. Maybe the right data was entered the right way at the beginning or maybe it wasn’t.
It is not easy to win an argument against a database. You have to a lot of your own ‘valid’ documentation to get a database updated.
And if you do win, you can’t be sure that the new record reflects your version or reality, or just something stored cryptically in a series of notes connected to you record.
It is a record for someone other than the person who created it to interpret it. Chances are they are just skimming through fields trying to figure out what happened on their end while you are pleading your case.
While you may have much richer evidence, the reality is that they have a lot more power over the history of events.
