Patricia asked:
>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


Patricia, the use of the word "document" for that cited dataset is
problematic. Insofar as the website identifies its offering, what you have
is at least a fourth-generation derivative of something from who-knows-what
original source (or sources). An "ahnentafel" for this dataset might be
this:


1st generation (original) source:
Unidentified.

2nd generation source:
"Charles H. S. Davis of Springfield" copied or compiled some notes by hand
at some point before 1863 and sent them to the New England Historical and
Genealogical Society.

3d generation source:
The editor of the NEHGS *Register* put together that January 1864 issue and
sent Davis's handwritten pages to the printing house for the typesetter to
interpret what Davis had written. (It's also possible that the editor
himself rewrote or reformatted Davis's offering in an attempt to make it
more legible for the typesetter--thereby creating yet another "generation"
to consider.)

4th generation source:
Someone posted this *Register* material on the web. To do that, they either
retyped the Register material or else they OCR'd it. As we all know, OCR
doesn't always get characters and numbers right. What we don't know, from
the website's background discussion (which is non-existent) is what level of
proofing was done after the OCR scan or the keyboard input.


In fact, we don't know the most important issue of all:  Where did this
information come from?  The title "Records of Springfield, Mass" implies
(ideally) that it is faithfully transcribed from the town records where
births, marriages, and deaths were supposed to be recorded. As we all know,
however, many of the "published vital records" for New England towns are an
accumulation of material from all sorts of places, not just the official
town registers. Some are very good. Some include quite questionable sources
and major errors.


>As long as I make sure there are several other means of documenting dates,
etc, would you trust apage like this?

That also raises the question of what quality material would be used as
those "other means of *documenting* dates."  It's easy to find other sources
that will *repeat* the same information, which they may have taken from this
same 1864 publication. Finding multiple "sources" that say the same thing,
of course, does not mean that one has valid documentation.


>Or do most of you prefer photocopies of the actual record? >

Considering all the possibilities for errors that exist in using a
4th-generation derivative source, would you feel comfortable trusting this
website offering and basing all future research upon what this source tells
you?  Or would you prefer to, quite sincerely, thank the website for
providing a "quick and easy" finding aid that points to the existence of
original records?

The official town registers of Springfield births, marriages, and deaths
prior to 1864, with indexes, are easily available from the Family History
library as film rolls 185,411 through 185,418.


Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG
*Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian*
*QuickSheet: Citing Online Historical Resources Evidence! Style*

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