I enjoyed your novelette here placed.  :-)  You have a gift of expression, and I hope you develop it by writing some family narrative.

Though I surely join in your encouragement of others to add their info to appropriate net sites, I am reminded of my Father who would have said that relying on the internet for in-depth genealogical research is similar to standing at the back door and taking a shot at the woods, hoping thereby to bag breakfast.  Paul   
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: [log in to unmask] 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 12:14 PM
  Subject: Footnotes on taxlists, etc.


  (Cynthia here, making Feet-in-Mouth Notes)

  ....
  Gulp.
  Squirming here, because I have not yet translated this Glorious
  Conclusion into Action.

  ....At present,  I am sitting on a number of completed 1850 Census
  transcriptions I've done up which I find indispensable in my own personal
  research and am certain would be a welcome addition to the general
  genealogical database of their particular county websites, but.......

  First of all, even though whatever I am doing is not for profit, in the
  context of this discussion I realize now I *stole* the original census
  images I've painstakingly transcribed, by way of my paid ancestry.com
  subscription... yes?

  ****  Nope; censuses are public record.

  ....Yet mispellings aren't computer
  findable and I was first of all doing this for my own personal use.

  It's a horrible job.  "Errors" are inevitable.  If the enumerator hasn't
  gone 'n made 'em, (miswritten, misunderstood, mispelled, misplaced,
  misnumbered)...I can certainly misread the blurry scribblings myself.
  Short of that, I am still wondering if one Illinois head of household
  enumerated as,  "SIMMONS, Medad",  was somewhere out in the back-forty
  the day the census-taker stopped by the farmhouse.

  ****may well have been !

  Nevermind, but then you know what I am getting at.  And once you submit
  any of these things "to expand the accessible databases online", are you
  consigning yourself to make endless updates if you hear from each and
  every descendant who knows for sure a child's age was wrong or given name
  spelled otherwise?

  *** nope; your work is done, and it is up to those who borrow your conclusions to satisfy themselves as to your errors or lack of same.  

  ....Back in 1996 when I first connected to the internet there was
  next to nothing online, very very little in the way of raw genealogical
  data.  Even though now the amount of material is overwhelming, yet not
  too long ago I myself sent a whining plea to the Powers That Be begging
  that it be suggested to the hundreds of county genweb volunteers they
  upload at least a Township Map of their counties -  one of those with the
  1-36 sections of each within their boundaries would be nice....&
  available to scan from their local libraries but ordinarily not available
  to researchers in other counties much less in other States - so we can
  orient ourselves to the data they offer....

  Now in 2004, there is however, HOPE !!!

  ....To increase the online database for each other and
  future generations of researchers.  Yes there are pitfalls.  And
  surprising consequences.  Some pretty unpleasant ones.  But I keep
  feeling I ought to submit the stuff I've worked so hard on if it only
  helps just one person, like I've been helped.

  ***Good thoughts.

  .... I'm hoping you'll reconsider anyway.

  ***Many of us join in that hope.  


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