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Referenced Record
Referenced but Unrecovered Documents
Reports, memoranda, enclosures, compilations and attachments cited by surviving records but not yet recovered.
Research Leads
Make the unanswered questions visible.
Research Leads records the documentary trails Rosetta is actively pursuing—missing files, unresolved identities, incomplete relationships, archival references, and questions raised by surviving evidence.
Question → Lead → Target Record → Retrieval → Verification → Evidence
Foundation Edition
A research lead is not a historical finding.
Rosetta preserves promising documentary trails without promoting them prematurely to evidence. A lead may begin with a citation to an unrecovered report, a contract number, an unexplained codeword, a shipment reference, a missing roster, an archival finding aid, or a contradiction that requires another record to resolve.
Public leads will be selected carefully so that visitors can see what is being investigated without mistaking an open question for an established connection.
Status rule
RESEARCH LEAD — NOT AN ESTABLISHED HISTORICAL FINDING
Every public lead must remain visibly separated from documented and indirectly documented evidence until the underlying source has been recovered and evaluated.
Lead types
Different gaps require different searches.
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Contract Trail
Contracts & Procurement Leads
Unresolved contract numbers, subcontracts, purchase orders, vendor relationships, work scopes and contract-file targets.
Contracts & Contractors →⇄
Movement
Shipment & Accountability Leads
Unrecovered shipping records, receiving documents, accountability forms, transfer references and source-destination gaps.
Shipments & Connections →?
Identity
Codeword & Terminology Leads
Historical terms, aliases, component designations and codewords whose meanings remain unresolved or incompletely documented.
Codewords & Terminology Decoder →♙
People
Worker & Monitoring Leads
Missing rosters, job populations, monitoring enrollment records, bioassay documentation and worker-to-task questions.
Occupational History →⚠
Event
Occurrence & Incident Leads
Event references needing original reports, chronology, material identification, worker linkage, monitoring or corrective-action records.
Occurrences, Incidents & Accidents →⌂
Repository
Archival Retrieval Leads
Record groups, accessions, series, boxes, finding aids and repositories that may contain evidence needed to close a documented gap.
Documents & Archives →∅
Gap
Missing-Record Targets
Specific documentary gaps whose existence or expected record context can be described without claiming that the missing record's contents are known.
The Missing Evidence →Research lifecycle
Leads can mature—or remain unresolved.
Research Lead → Record Recovered → Source Verified → Evidence Evaluated → Master Evidence → Publication Review
A recovered record does not automatically validate the original lead. It may support it, narrow it, contradict it, or show that the proposed relationship was incorrect. Rosetta preserves that distinction.
Public contribution
Some questions may be solved collaboratively.
Future Research Lead entries may identify archival targets where historians, archivists, librarians, former workers, families, and other researchers can help locate surviving records. Contributions will require provenance and verification before they affect Rosetta evidence status.
Evidentiary principle
Uncertainty belongs in the record.
Rosetta does not fill documentary gaps with chronology, proximity, technical plausibility, or repetition. When a relationship remains unresolved, the unresolved status is itself preserved until evidence changes it.