| DNA Genealogy - Wow!
|
 |
|
Genealogy Spotlight
|
* GenealogyBank.com - search Historical Newspapers 1690 - 1977, Historical Books 1801 - 1900, Historical Documents 1789 - 1980, America's Obituaries 1977 to current, and Social Security Death Index 1937 to current
* U.S.A. Genealogy Collection on World Vital Records
|
Security Alert!
Use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer to prevent SPYWARE
Firefox is FREE, safe and user-friendly
|
|
Genealogy Without Sources is Mythology!
© Lorine McGinnis Schulze
http://olivetreegenealogy.com/index.shtml
How can you tell if the information posted by
individuals on Internet genealogy sites is valid? Some sites have sources, others don't. How do you know what, and when, to believe what you read online??
A good rule of thumb is....
Don't trust anything you find on the 'net (or elsewhere) if it doesn't have sources.
Without sources you can't verify it, and you don't know whether the information came from a reliable source or whether it came from Great Aunt Martha who may have some of it right, but may have mixed up a lot too.
Maybe the info came from a book written by someone 100 years ago who didn't have
access to sources we have now, or who just plain got it wrong.
Perhaps the information was transcribed for a webpage from a book source. That book source was transcribed from a microfilm record which was itself transcribed from the original. The chance of human error is greatly increased with each succeeding transcription.
Even if the information has a source, you should double-check it personally, either from the original source or from an independent source.
VERIFY, VERIFY, VERIFY!!!
You also want to think about the source itself. Is the source a good one? After all, if Great
Aunt Martha gives me information on the birth or baptism of my 3rd great-grandpa and I put it on the 'net, and source it as "Remembrances of Great Aunt Martha", that's not necessarily a reliable or accurate source. After all, Great Aunt Martha did have that fall from a horse when she was a child and she IS 97 years old......
However if I source the birth or baptismal dates with full details on the church where I saw the original record, or the published transcript of those church records, that's much more
reliable.
When in doubt, remember.... .
"Genealogy without sources is mythology"
© Lorine McGinnis Schulze of The Olive Tree Genealogy at http://olivetreegenealogy.com/index.shtml Article may be copied as long as identifying information and link to website is left intact
What's New
Wishing you had an ancestor photograph? See the 1800s photographs and ancestor photo albums on Lost Faces. There are over 2,500 photos in this growing genealogy collection
|
Search Olive Tree Genealogy Family of Websites
|
|
Your Name in History |
Find out if your Surname is part of the Our Name in History Collection! Just type your surname into the search box
|
| |
|
marks FREE genealogy records.
