How we verify

Every file here makes a factual claim, and most of them contradict something you have read elsewhere. That puts this site under a higher obligation than the sources it corrects.

So here is the standard, in public.

The rules

A claim without a source does not go in. Every name, date, number and quotation is checked against a primary source or the nearest thing to one: a contemporary record, a court document, an archive, a transcript, a peer-reviewed paper. "Widely reported" is not a source.

No invented quotations. Famous last words and memorable one-liners are the most repeated and least reliable things on the internet. Where a quotation has no verifiable origin, that absence becomes the story.

Myths are named as myths. When the popular version of an event is wrong, we say so plainly and explain how the wrong version spread. A correction that does not explain the error is only half a correction.

Uncertainty is stated precisely. Reported, disputed and unverified are not hedging — they are information. Where historians genuinely disagree, we say they disagree rather than picking the tidier version.

We correct in public. If a file is wrong, it is fixed and the change is noted. Corrections are appended, never quietly edited away.

How a file gets made

1. Start with a claim that is widely repeated. 2. Find the earliest source it can be traced to. 3. Check whether that source actually says what people claim it says. 4. Look for the detail that changes the story. 5. Write it in under 300 words. 6. Check every specific again before publishing.

Step three is where most of the work is. A surprising amount of what "everyone knows" survives simply because nobody went back to the original.

How these files are made

Files are drafted with AI assistance and checked against primary sources before publication. That is worth stating plainly, on a site whose subject is other people's unchecked claims.

The assistance changes how quickly a draft exists. It changes nothing about the standard: every specific is still verified, every quotation still needs an origin, and anything that cannot be sourced is cut rather than softened. A file that cannot be confirmed does not get published, however good it reads.

Corrections are welcome for exactly this reason. Verification is a claim we make about our own work, and the only way to test a claim is to try to break it.

What we do not do

• No sponsored stories. Advertising is sold as advertising and displayed as advertising. It never appears as editorial.
• No silent corrections. The record stays public.
• No invented drama. If the true story is duller than the rumour, you get the true story.

What this site is not

It is not a news service and it is not comprehensive. It is a collection of specific, checkable stories. Forty files that survive scrutiny are worth more than four hundred that do not.

Spotted an error?

Write to corrections@tomesweethome.com with the source. Corrections get priority over everything else.