A cousin wrote:
...we have been stymied by "records lost in the great Revolutionary
War fire," "poor histories," and others.
.... I have been good at recording what others have reported but need
to do some looking on my
own.  I am about 35 miles from the LDS main library in SLC, UT and
should be
more effective.
....Please take a moment and tell me (how to start over and) what
books you have written and which one might be the starter for me to
"start afresh."
Thanks, M...
*****
Good morning, Cuz.  Many will envy you with your access to LDS.

I wrote, "You Ought To Write All That Down" (under my name as "author"
at <heritagebooks.com> and at Amazon) a couple years ago in response
to the lack of anything I found worthwhile out there having to do with
advanced research and writing family narrative history.  I would
recommend it to you, and do believe it will help you to carefully
re-examine all your accumulated sources.  The majority of that book is
dedicated to in-depth analysis and inferences of and from your
gleanings.

Most of all, and while you await your reading of that effort, I would
set aside all you have gathered - ALL - that did not come from HIGHLY
reliable sources.  Keep that material, but for the moment pretend that
you have NO idea where your man came from, where he lived, or where he
went after leaving the location at which you now know he was at one
time or another.

Genealogy, like politics, is LOCAL; it is written that 95% of the
records we leave of our lives were left in local records. I call those
local sites "wheres".  Go to the free websites sponsored by those
counties - your "wheres" - in which your ancestors may have left
records of their lives.  There exhaust every source open to you, join
that society, make local contacts, submit queries, and if atall
possible plan to visit there.  Remember, less than 5% of what is
available to you for research is yet on the internet.

Forget all nonsense labels as direct, primary, clue, secondary,
hearsay, and such like, and remember that every word, record, book,
memento, state of being, and physical location that in any way
whatever tends to demonstrate lineage IS evidence.  AND those bits of
evidence vary ONLY in probity - weight - and reliability and must all
be noted and considered.  The slightest scrap of material or writing
that may lead you to answers is evidence, no matter how weak it may
be.

At LDS, go first to the written histories - books and articles -
concerning your family, being sure to check the PERSI indexes and
carefully read ALL those materials, as well.  If the book you pull
from the shelves has no footnotes showing sources, forget it; you
already likely have read all the unsubstantiated crap you need.

Be sure to read or at least scan any and all local histories of your
"wheres", and forget that BS about how county histories are
"unreliable".  Everything is unreliable until you demonstrate
otherwise, and many features in such county books are invaluable and
may not be found anyplace else.

Use the footnotes in  all the writings found in those sources as
jumping off places for further research, and as before, pretend you
know nothing and need to be convinced.  I will bet that within a
couple hours you will be off on your own trail of evidence.  If not,
tell me and maybe I can help a tad.  Good luck, and hurray for you for
starting over with your "brick walls"; we all should now and then.
Paul

To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html