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Archiver > TMG > 2002-06 > 1023036816


From: "Cliff Soderback" <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Place of death
Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 09:53:44 -0700
References: <16c.e7f9b87.2a2b8558@aol.com>


snip


> 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.

>
snip

> 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,

snip

>-Dale
>


First: I agree with your approach because of learning the hard way to not
to trust so called facts. I only record sources that can be verified in
public records,
why, it does no good to quote a lot of "Aunt Martha's Bible" or Great
Grandmothers
diary because no one will ever be able to verify this information.

The Internet has made a wealth of information available to researchers,
some good,
some bad. The nature of the Internet is that is in constant flux, so quoting
a
Website is foolish because next week it might not be there. There is a large
amount of so called family tree's published on various websites, sometimes
these
can be valuable other times these are fiction. The difficulty is that the
fiction
is getting copied from person to person.

If we set the bar too high in confirming sources then we will have very
little
information, indeed. Sometimes our records are made of very small bits and
pieces,
gathered from many places to try in find a trail to follow. Most of us don't
have the luxury
of having our families history written down in books in the public library.
If fact none
of my family can be found in any public library, although they are in the
census records.
I wholly agree on obituaries many times containing inaccurate information,
this has
been my experience. Many times these are not made out by the primary people
involved.

Only in the last 100 years has the States and Counties been recording
births and
deaths. This was the charge of the churches in earlier times. Well, not
everybody
was a member of a church in rural areas so the information just was not
recorded.
Before the Electric light there were many fires that burned churches and
courthouses,
which destroyed all the records. If your relatives records were in one of
these fires
you will never find them. If fact, my own military records went up in smoke
in a fire
in the military archives in the 1970's.

We all do the best we can with the information at hand, the difficulty is
trying
to separate fact from fiction. If I don't record a source for a fact, then
it is fiction
(or at least unconfirmed), only the ones that I have personally confirmed
are recorded
with sources.

Cliff Soderback



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