I agree with you, Don. I have several email sources that I have to rely on the person who transcribed documents and hope they didn't add typos to it. I prefer to have a real source so I can transcribe it myself, but sometimes they're just not available. It's better to try to find a document you can read and transcribe yourself. I also transcribe all census records I find because many times whoever did the transcription didn't do a very good job.
If you have any ancestors from the Washington, DC area, they have a great resource called the DC Archives, operated by the DC government, where you can get all kinds of documents and they'll even send them via email for free. If the quality is bad, they'll send them to you in the mail (also free). Their vital records office used to be terrible. They would charge you for documents then tell you they couldn't find it. Bill Boswell From: Don Hanson [mailto:terra...@comcast.net] Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 11:34 AM To: LegacyUserGroup@LegacyUsers.com Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] sourcing questions Kirsty, I source what I, myself, know. In this case, the source of your evidence is the person who supplied the info. I would note where you might find the original, so that you or another researcher could more easily view it first-hand. But you did not personally view the source document. You aren’t even sure that the person supplying it did. For me, a source documents the source of the information that I used to reach a conclusion. Everything else goes into determining the quality of that source. For some facts, I may not want to have better sources. I may not be able to justify the expense, or maybe a better quality source doesn’t exist. So, for my purposes, the source is what I used, not what I could have used. The ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda goes into notes. Don Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyusers.com/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyfamilytree.com/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
