SNAC is fundamentally about archival records – specifically the people, organizations, and families that create them and are documented by them. We are committed to grounding our descriptions of these archival agents in archival evidence, and in so doing we consciously privilege the types of information that are likely to be documented in the archival record, or which we believe are most crucial to understanding the context in which archival records are created. We also recognize that although archives are essential to understanding the record of human endeavor, they are inherently incomplete and subjective. Silences – unintentional and purposeful, benign and harmful – exist in all archives, and those gaps will inevitably be reflected in the descriptions found in SNAC. We acknowledge these perils and limitations to archival description work. Our aim is to convey honest, transparent, and helpful context to archival researchers, not exhaustive or laudatory chronicles of our subjects. However, when our descriptions misrepresent individuals, organizations, or families – especially the living – we will do our best to work with individuals and communities to remediate errors, privacy concerns, or conspicuous omissions.
