Lou,

You have expressed my personal beliefs very well, there simply is no
better way to build a family tree than on the foundation of primary
source documents, to the largest extent possible. This is something
I have been suggesting for years to anyone that would listen, most
of the time I'm afraid it has fallen on deaf ears.

By all means use every source that you can locate for leads, but all
roads should lead to the search for proof of every event possible by
getting a copy of the actual primary document for that event, if it
exists.

I too have much unproven data in my files, from my younger and less
careful days when I started my family research. I now have the job
of trying to locate proof for those files, many times unsuccessfully
so far. But I have also found and corrected many mistakes through
documentation. And the search continues!!

Russell L. Lawrence


Lou Poole wrote:
>
> This should be required reading for all genealogists, and particularly
> those who are fairly new at the "game."  From my own experience I've
> found similar errors in about half the LDS FamilySearch genealogies on
> families I've researched personally.  And the same principles (and
> errors) hold for those ubiquitous GedComs that get passed around via
> the Internet -- only in these cases the error rates are much higher.
> Ditto, for published genealogies where no sources are provided.
>
> Many of us have learned the hard way that there's simply no substitute
> for personal research and confirmation via those dreaded primary
> records.  That is, if we're interested in the truth.
>
> My philosophy is to accept any clue, information or tip that I can
> find when I've nothing else to go on, but to use this information as a
> help in confirming the facts -- at least until such time as I have
> confidence in the information provided.  And in those cases where no
> confirming information can be found (which can often be the case where
> the information comes from family Bibles, etc., that are not available
> anymore), to document that as fact.
>
> Lou Poole
>

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