Pat wrote:
----- Original Message ----- 
 P******* 

Subject: Fw:Re: need your expertise


  
"I've searched Ancestry.com, HeritageQuest, the genealogy sites for each of the mentioned counties, FamilySearch.org, and plain old internet search. I know the marriage information because someone...looked it up for me, and got me a copy of the marriage bond (no clues there except Jane's father's name - Richeson Penn). I'm fairly new at this... (and) I figured  someone on this list might give me some guidance."
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Ms. Rogers.  You have done well to now.  However, a hokey metaphor may be of help to you.  

The "net" is like the spot in a forest from which you are allowed to hunt whatever is there or comes by.  You buy the best guns, scents, calls, and 100% virgin wool, red plaid hunting clothes, boots and cap (like the bells and whistles on your computer), go down to your little "blind" every day at dawn, and there wait and hunt for hours - no, days - on end, hoping to see some animal to catch and take home.

The problem you have is that, just as most of the animals in that forest simply ain't near your spot and will not come by no matter how many years you patiently wait and watch, probably 95% (as Janet has said) of the data you seek is not on the internet and will not be for years, if ever.  

Why? Because, just as your spot in the woods will not grow exotic, tasty, new and different food to attract more animals from elsewhere in the forest, there is not enough money to be made by posting new abstracts and discoveries on the internet for many of us to take the time to do so.  Remember, people, not computers, write what you want to know. 

The advent of computers has not changed the methods of research open, used and needed by us all.  We yet do exactly as we have done for centuries, still evaluate all evidence and ignore unproven facts, still make careful notes and still search EVERY source, no matter how miniscule.  So, although these gadgets we now use are handy and speedy tools by which we hunt knowledge, the information we seek and the methods we use are the same as always.

  The many "pay for information" sites now available are, at best, helpful SOMETIMES (especially the censuses), yet are, at worst, woefully short of source citations and are shot through with errors of commission and 
omission made by the untrained, the word peddlers, and the ever increasing number of non-genealogist money grubbers.    

Genealogy, like politics, is LOCAL; we leave the records of our lives where we lived, worked, were born, married and died, and where we went to church, attended court, bought houses, served on juries, voted, went to school, and joined the army.  The last time I looked, none of us were filing lawsuits, getting married, living in, buying or being buried on some website run by some stranger.

Just as you do and have done for a lifetime, the records left by our ancestors were created and deposited at the local courthouses and record keeping offices.  Those vast resources may not be found without looking there, no matter how smart you are or what new and expensive electronic gadgets we dream up or someone sells to us. 

So it is that you must establish those "wheres" of your ancestors, and after doing so, you must make connections with those places.  Every county that I have visited in almost 60 years of research has its unique records, sources and information that are not and will not be abstracted, compiled and posted on the internet for decades to come, if ever.    

So, do "net" searches for each of those counties where ancestors resided, see what the local groups/societies offer, make contacts with those folks, join those local societies (such are NOT expensive), write queries as we have always done, visit those "wheres" at every opportunity, and ask the local researchers what more they suggest you do.  Remember, almost without exception, local genealogists have worked with their home-town records for years, and they know more about those sources than all the professional researchers and writers who have not lived there ever will know.

Were I you, I would go to the net sites for every county and state in which your people lived or ever were found, make careful notes of and exhaust what you DO find there, and then vigorously seek what is NOT there.  Keep records as you always have, post those to your 'puter programs as you see fit, and then print what you post on good paper, since your discs will not last as long as that paper.

Finally, for now, at least, forget all the books and articles about how to use the internet, and if you have not read a "how-to" do good, old-fashioned genealogical research, buy or borrow one and read it.  Nothing has changed except the tools.   Good luck.   Paul 

(PS: To those of you who use my writings without first asking me, QUIT!)           

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