##surety##
[EE] (legal context) A person who agrees to serve as a guarantor of a debt or a bond; (genealogical context) a term adopted by developers of some relational database software to place a numerical value upon the level of confidence a researcher may have in a source.
[STEMMA] A numeric estimation of the confidence in a piece of evidence or a conclusion. For instance, a source may have contained original errors, and conclusions may include conjecture and speculation. Contrast with credibility, quality, and reliability.
[BG] Terminology found in one or more genealogy programs. The Master Genealogist (TMG) uses this term.
Definition from the TMG Glossary: A numerical value assigned to indicate the quality of a source in documenting a given fact recorded in the data set. The surety values are recorded in the citation record. The values are:
- 3= an original source, close in time to the event
- 2= a reliable secondary source
- 1= a less reliable secondary source or an assumption based on other facts in a source
- 0= a guess
- -= the source does not support the information cited or this information has been disproved
About Surety, from the TMG Help file topic "GEDCOM export":
Sureties: When this option is selected, surety values are exported to the extent supported by GEDCOM. Date, place, and memo sureties are exported with a QUAY tag at one level higher (usually 4) than the source citation from which they are referenced.