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Archiver > TMG > 2000-01 > 0946927384


From: "Mills" <>
Subject: Re: TMG-L: Source Surety Values
Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2000 13:23:04 -0600


Bob Gillis wrote:

> While the information recorded in a cemetery transcription can have a
> lower surety, published transcriptions are generally reliable. I know
> Elizabeth Shown Mills disagrees with this.

Oh, ye, of great faith! I gather, Bob, that you've just received your
December 1999 issue of the NGS Quarterly and read the Editors' Corner,
"Hoodwinks, Tomfoolery, and Fakelore." <g> So turn now, real quick, to
Carmen Finley's "Historical Hoodwinks" article and grieve with her over all
her lost years and wasted work caused by trusting a published transcription!

Elizabeth

P.S. To all the great people in the world who prepare those abstracts,
transcriptions, and translations we all use and love: no offense meant! I've
been there, done that, and made my share of typos and
misreadings--especially back when my enthusiasm far exceeded my experience
(a not-uncommon situation among those who abstract records for society
publications &c &c &c).

The keyword for the user, as I see it, is *verify*. If a published
transcript or abstract is the thread by which we try to tie an ancestor upon
our family tree, wisdom suggests (as Lee Hoffman just did) locating the
original--or the earliest existing derivative copy if the original is no
longer extant--to make certain the thread's not frayed.
-esm-


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