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Archiver > TMG > 2002-06 > 1023028056


From:
Subject: Re: [TMG] Place of death
Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 10:27:36 EDT


Darrell- Misunderstanding in these short e-mail messages is fairly easy
because it is difficult to be clear and brief. Churchill once asked , upon
being asked to give a speech, "How long do you want me to talk?. The
response was "Why do you want to know or some such. Churchill replied that if
they wanted him to talk for a few minutes it would take him sometime to
prepare such a work. If they wanted him to talk for two hours he was ready at
anytime. But anyway let me try again.
First, let me say I have a great suspicion of any genealogical "fact"
that has no CONTEMPORARY record associated with it. That doesn't mean I don't
use such information, but I always surround it with caveats and disclaimers.
I just do not trust very much memories, histories, oral histories, family
traditions, newspaper articles, etc. Therefore, perhaps I put more stock in
contemporary records than most. Thus in almost all cases where some sort of
contemporary record is not available, I enter nothing in the field. In some
cases, for example, birth records themselves are rarely available before the
1900s. I will use a cerca date for that with the explanation that my estimate
is derived from a census report, lifted from a death record, or some other
second hand non contemporary record. My caveat for death citations goes
something like this. A place or date entered in the field does not mean the
event happened there but that a contemporary record exists in that locality
bearing on that event in the year or date given. It furthermore indicates, in
most cases, that I have personally seen that record. In the case of my own
father who died in St Louis, but actually lived in Greene County, IL there is
further complication. In many localities but not all, by any means, such
records are copied and a copy is sent back to the county in which the person
lives so in my father's case there does exist a record in his county of
residence that I could use for a contemporary source. So far I have not seen
an example of a death record in some locality stating that the person
actually died somewhere else so haven't had to face that problem yet.
Marriage records are another problem in this area. Many marriage
records mean very little as to the actual marriage. Most official marriage
records are requests for a marriage license. The actual marriage may take
place in the county of issuance of the license, in another county, or in at
least two cases, in my immediate family, the marriage covered by the license
never took place at all. All that gets pretty complicated so I prefer as a
general rule to point people at the record and cover the details in notes,
memos, citations etc. However it, as I said, a matter of choice and smarter
folks than I am, handle the situation differently.-Dale

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