Evidence Standards
The rule that governs what this site will assert, and the specific things it therefore refuses to tell you.
The Rule
What We Therefore Refuse to Tell You
- How long the FBI will take. The FBI publishes no processing figure of any kind.
- How long the Department of State will take to authenticate a document, beyond what that office itself publishes.
- What a Channeler charges. Channelers set their own fees and we do not aggregate them.
- Whether an authority that has published no position on a question would in fact accept a given document. Silence is not permission.
- Which provider to use for any part of the process.
In each case the honest answer is the same: ask the body that decides. A page that told you otherwise would be more satisfying to read and less useful to rely on.
How Claims Are Graded
| State | What it means | How it appears on the page |
|---|---|---|
| Documented | An authority publishes it | Stated plainly with an inline citation |
| Undocumented | No authority publishes it either way | Named as unpublished; no substitute offered |
| Superseded | It was published but has since been overtaken | Kept with the date it applied to, and what replaced it |
Last updated 2026-08-01