Just a word of caution before you completely discount oral history.  If 
we would have relied upon documentation only when we started researching 
my mom's family, we would never have located her real father or any of 
his ancestors.  My mom is still with us, and she remembered, as a child, 
visiting her real father, and has told us for years which of her aunts 
used to take her to visit him.  Interviewing older cousins gave us 
information as to where his parents came from.  Had we not know that, 
and if we had relied only on census and other "official" records, 
everything we now have would be totally incorrect.  Record the oral 
histories you have, and use them along with the official records to find 
your people.

Ruth

KAREN DALE wrote:

>I spend most of my time redoing someone else's version--especially those copied from late 19th-early 20th century "genealogies."  Most of those versions were based on interviewing living descendants---and not much more. Checking a tombstone or two, I guess.  And of course, as we all know, the human memory (and therefore oral history) is notoriously faulty!  Right now I've got a problem with a spouse--the GA branch of the family (in different two "books") says she was Mary Brown; the Alabama branch (via her grandson) says Mary Phillips. Arrgh! The GA branch never could get anything right--so I'm working on Phillips these days--having never heard of them until last week! 
>
>Never trust anyone else--unless they can provide some original documentation. 
>
>Karen
>  ----- Original Message ----- 
>  From: sharon Peery<mailto:[log in to unmask]> 
>  To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> 
>  Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 8:00 AM
>  Subject: Re: [VA-ROOTS] Is Genealogy obsolete?
>
>
>  All the substantive things have been said, so I just thought I would share my online genealogy
>  story, briefly, I promise!
>   
>  Several years ago I was recovering from an illness and started looking at Ancestry.com because
>  I lacked energy to do much else.  To my incredulous delight I found the ancestry of my family
>  of origin back to the German immigrant of 1741, place of birth, date of birth, marriage, all children
>  etc. etc. etc.  It took me a few months to begin to wonder:  how do they know this?  I began to
>  e-mail everyone who posted the information, as well as asking for sources on message boards.
>  Utter silence.
>   
>  Last year a distant cousin in Wisconsin answered my question.  About 15 years ago he had gone
>  to Shenandoah Co., done some research, speculated on relationships and shared his speculations
>  with another cousin.  This cousin posted all of his speculations on the net, without attribution and
>  without identifying them as speculative.  Now this "information" is all over the place.  My Wisconsin
>  cousin, the original source, has given up online genealogy entirely.
>   
>  Earlier this year I found a listing of dates of birth for a Pennsylvania ancestor's siblings.  I e-mailed
>  the person who posted this asking for a source.  She never responded but asked how I fit in.  I
>  told her.  I later checked her Rootsweb site again and found that she had added my gg-grandfather.
>  She got his year of birth incorrect.  The best part, however, was her version of his place of death:
>  "Vicksburg, Va.," 1863!
>   
>
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