Method
How evidence is recorded and labelled
The site separates what a document says from what happened, and how much a source can be trusted from how confident a conclusion is.
Linked records
Everything is stored as separate, linked records. A source is a document or edition. A passage is a verbatim extract from one source. A claim is a statement with evidence, where each piece of evidence is a passage that supports, contradicts or qualifies it. There are also records for people, locations, events, reconstructions and assumptions.
Confidence labels
- Well supported
- Directly stated in inspected sources, from more than one line of evidence or one strong line, without credible contradiction.
- Disputed
- Sources or credible interpretations conflict.
- Weakly supported
- Rests on a single weak, late or indirect line of evidence.
- Unknown
- The available evidence does not settle it.
- Unverified
- The underlying source could not be accessed, so the claim has not been checked.
Every label comes with written reasons. A label describes the evidence for a claim, not the reliability of any one person.
Independent lines of evidence
Repetition is not corroboration. If one report was copied by several papers, or a modern transcription reproduces a newspaper, they all count as one line. Each source records what it derives from. Two sources count as independent only when their chains of derivation do not meet. Claims show the largest set of their cited sources that are independent in this sense.
Example: the Daily Telegraph's and The Times's reports of the same testimony count as two lines, unless one is shown to have copied the other. The Casebook transcription of the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Telegraph itself count as one.
Conflicts between accounts
When accounts disagree, the disagreement is kept as its own record and classified, so that a real contradiction is not confused with a clock, wording or reporting difference. Undetermined means a reviewer looked and found that the surviving record cannot settle it: either account could be right, or it cannot be shown whether they really conflict. The type of conflict the reviewer saw is still given beside it.
- Genuine contradiction: 24 claims
- Undetermined: the record cannot settle this conflict: 12 claims
- Contradicting evidence (not yet classified): 1 claim
- Incomplete reporting: 12 claims
- Clock or estimate difference: 16 claims
- Wording or reporting difference: 36 claims
- Identification or inference (who someone was), not a direct contradiction: 11 claims
On the timeline an event shows its most serious conflict, in this order: genuine contradiction, undetermined, not yet classified, apparent (clock, estimate, wording, incomplete reporting or identification). “Only events with conflicting evidence” can be narrowed to one kind.
Who is speaking
A passage's speaker counts towards the number of independent witnesses behind a claim, so the site says how each speaker was identified. A small label next to the name gives one of three answers:
- named in the passage (301 passages)
- The quoted words themselves name the speaker (by name or office, e.g. "The Coroner").
- speaker named in the citation (300 passages)
- The quoted words do not name the speaker; the citation (locator) of this passage names the witness whose evidence it is.
- speaker identified by the publishing source (85 passages)
- Neither the quoted words nor the citation name the speaker. The attribution comes from the page around the excerpt, such as the sentence introducing the interview or deposition.
Kinds of source
- Original document
- A document produced at the time by a participant (statement, notes, deposition).
- Official report
- A report written by an official, often summarising other material.
- Transcription
- A modern copy of another document. It inherits that document's limits and adds the risk of copying errors.
- Press report
- A contemporary newspaper account. Reporters condensed, paraphrased and sometimes misheard.
- Later recollection
- An account written or given years afterwards.
- Modern interpretation
- A modern secondary or reference work. Useful for leads, not as evidence in itself.
Historical text and editorial text
Verbatim historical text is shown on aged paper with a burgundy rule and the label “Historical text · verbatim”, with its source next to it. Text written for this site, such as biographies, summaries and interpretations of times, carries an “Editorial” label. Images that are reconstructions, or that were generated, restored or speculative, are always labelled as such. Period newspaper illustrations are marked as artists' impressions.
Inside quotations, “[...]” marks text omitted by this project, and “[sic]” or “[illegible]” are kept as found. Each passage records the URL it was retrieved from and whether it has been checked word for word against the retrieved copy.
Times
A time is always shown as reported (“c. 2.30 a.m.”) next to this site's reading of it (≈ 02:15–02:45). The default readings are: “c.” means ±15 minutes, a stated range is kept as given, “afternoon” means 12:00–18:00, and a date with no time means the whole day. These are conventions, not findings, and the theory workbench will let you widen or narrow them.
Scene plans
Each scene plan is a schematic reconstruction, not a historical plan: boxes and lines on a 0–100 grid, drawn from witness descriptions by the research team. Only the figures witnesses gave (a 3 ft recess, a 5 ft 6 in fence) are measurements; spacing is otherwise schematic. Solid outlines are approximate, dashed ones uncertain. Each numbered hotspot opens the claims and verbatim passages behind it. When hotspots would overlap, the buttons are spread apart and a thin line points back to the true position.
Sound and atmosphere
The optional ambient sound is off until you turn it on with the “Ambient sound” button. It is generated in your browser (filtered noise with a slow swell): there are no recordings and no audio files, so no third-party licence applies; the generating code is dedicated to the public domain (CC0). If your system asks for reduced motion, the swell is switched off. The paper texture and warm edge shading are decorative only; they are turned off when your system asks for more contrast, and never sit behind body text at full strength. Licence note: audio/LICENSE.txt.
State of the archive
- 369 sources
- 1036 passages
- 544 claims
- 192 people
- 65 locations
- 311 events
- 23 reconstructions
- 49 assumptions
- 78 assets
- 11 cases
- 14 routes
- 29 dossiers
- 10 linkages
- 5 scenes
Records last rebuilt 14 October 2026.