I have to reply to this thread as I was one of those excited newbies that
posted to all the genealogy sites about 15 years ago when these genealogy
forums first showed up.  I met some wonderful distant cousins who were
wonderful at getting me started on researching the family and in the
beginning I was one of those that was guilty of not taking note of sources
but quickly learned that sometimes you want to go back and revisit a
document and it is a good idea to know where to relocate that document
again!  I also began listing as sources all those generous researchers that
helped me.

I found that gedcoms are only as good as the researcher and not reliable as
fact.  I found far too many people are more interested in connecting
themselves to someone famous rather than finding out the true line of their
roots and sometimes bend and twist the data to fit their desires.  I can't
tell you how many times I have found people with faulty information and
reached out to try and help them and get their information straight only to
be told that "I found this on the LDS site" as if those genealogies are the
holy grail of truth.  After awhile I began looking at gedcoms on Rootsweb
and found my ancestors on gedcoms with notes lifted directly from my emails
that I had sent to people and they had it listed as if it were their own
research.  Not only that, these same notes, worded exactly as I had worded
it showed up in other gedcoms of people I had never talked to before.  How
do they even know it is accurate information? They didn't even paraphrase
what I had written.  The icing on the cake came when I helped a woman
straighten out one of her family lines that she had really messed up on. She
had relied solely on gedcoms found online to trace her family. We sent email
after email on this family data and I sent her source information and
everything.  Within weeks of my assisting her she sends me a CD "thanking
me" for my help with the family history. The CD is a family history of the
surname I was helping her with and under the title... "Researched by HER
NAME".  She is now selling this CD to folks and she is considered the "go
to" person on this family line.  To my knowledge she has never darkened the
door of a research library.  I can definitely say that my excitement was
replaced with cynicism at that point.  I guess I should just be happy she
didn't charge me for my own work.

I will continue to help people because I think each and every one of us has
the right to know "who we are" and "where we come from".  As for serious
research I do serious research with some cousins who are "diggers" and are
covered with dust from the old records at the library.  They go after the
material at its source and I trust them and the know I am hands on too so
they trust me. I guess you would say we are "underground" and do not post
online anymore.

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