Kim Jones wrote
He, from what I can gather has not used any sort of program except maybe Excel, but dont quote me. I never ever knew there were so many of us, but in saying that what do I do now? Do I enter them all as is written or do I research each and every one individually/family. He has only sent me some facts like date of birth, marrige date, date of death if they had children or not, basic facts with a few pictures 5 in all but 370 people all up.and all of them are apparantly related to me. Do I need marrage certificates and death and so on to put them in Legacy? or can I just add the whole lot as is? Because I'm very new to Legacy and the whole genealogy thing I'm I bit worried that I will do all that adding and then really should not have done and have to undo all that work. So can someone please help?
It's entirely up to you how accurate you wish to be. If you want to take your cousin's word for it and blindly accept that all his information is correct, then just enter all the data you have been given into Legacy.
However, if you want to adopt a professional approach and want to be sure that any data you share with other people is accurate, you should check all his sources or do the initial research yourself if he doesn't give sources.
Of course, this is going to take a long time and it will inevitably cost you money. But genealogy is like all hobbies - it *does* cost you something to enjoy yourself! In the meantime, there is no reason why you shouldn't enter all your cousin's data into Legacy and either leave the Sources blank or put your cousin's details in as the Source. Gradually over time you can add to or replace the Sources with the results of your own research.
As a general rule, be wary of accepting anyone word as "gospel truth." And don't believe that something must be true - a person's birthdate, for example - because the same information appears on numerous websites. People are always sharing data (and a few help themselves without permission) and repeating what they were told and by no means everyone is careful about doing their own research.
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