Where do we go from here? The basic concepts of genealogy need to be better defined. Which concepts are basic and which are derived? The factors entering into an analysis need to be better understood. Our formalization should provide a framework for their study.
Not at all well handled by this approach is the heuristic — the procedures used to identify and locate sources that will give additional genealogical information. This question is left open. We have treated here only the determiniation of whether two sources are compatable given the structure of those two sources. We could make an analogy to the game of chess. Not even a computer has time to consider all the possible moves in a given situation. Nor could it be expected to go through every genealogical source in existence. The definition of certain parameters restricts the choice apreciably. In chess it is the strategy that will immediately restrict attention to only a few moves of those possible. The proper formalization of the strategies involved in the heuristic of genealogy is subject of further investigation.