Pat in Montana asked:

"I was wondering about this a few days ago. When a document is
transcribed and posted on the internet, is it usually considered
authentic enough to be counted as "proper documentation"? As a "for
instance":

http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ma/county/hampden/spfld/records/vr.html

"As long as I make sure there are several other means of documenting
dates, etc, would you trust apage like this? Or do most of you prefer
photocopies of the actual record?"

Pat, I'll only give you my own opinion, since I think there are likely
to be as many opinions on this subject as on other recent topics <g>.
It's a very good question, though, and worthy of discussion.

It is, of course, always preferable to use original documents as your
source, but we would not get very far in genealogy if we relied on
original sources exclusively (the purists will immediately object to
that statement).  I tend to use whatever I can find, wherever I can
find it, and to save my double-checking for that information that is
critical, or seems to be in conflict with something else I have.
After a while one begins to develop a sense of what appears to be
"good" information or sources, without having to double-check
everything against really original sources.

The source you cite looks to me like it is a reputable source,
especially since it cited it's own source of the information
(abstractions and transcriptions without citation are - to me - less
trustworthy).  If you cite the information you extract as being
"...from internet site xxxxx citing yyyyy [including, volume, page
number, etc.]" you should be reasonably OK.

But just to make the point that even reasonably looking abstracts and
transcriptions cannot always be trusted, I recently encountered an
abstracted (could just as well have been a transcribed) will that was
widely promulgated on a surname list that had had names added to the
list of heirs which were NOT in the original record.  So, yes, you can
also assume that genealogical fraud is very much alive and well on the
Internet.

The bottom line is that, unless you intend to launch yourself on the
purist path and severely thereby limit your lines of research, it
really all comes down to trust of the source.  And only you can be the
judge of that question.

Lou Poole

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