Don: Good rigorous protocol. What you are recommending is much like establishing the provenance for artwork. You always source the last known source. Then you trace it back each step of the way to its origin. Tedious? Yes. But much more accurate than the sloppiness found in some genealogy. And one of the delights of genealogy is being a careful and accurate sleuth.
From: Don Hanson [mailto:terra...@comcast.net] Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 1:25 PM To: LegacyUserGroup@LegacyUsers.com Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] sourcing questions It depends upon who you want to convince. If you are doing the tree for yourself, you are the judge of what proof (source) you want to accept. If you are creating the tree for a book publisher, they will have their standards of proof needed. Remember, sources are like a bibliography that supports conclusions made in a research paper. The intended audience dictates how thorough you need to be. Facts can be remembered incorrectly, transcripts may contain typos, documents can (and are) faked. I enjoy watching shows about antiques and art and how they are valued. I marvel at how often things are faked. A photocopy of a faked document doesn’t prove that the original wasn’t faked. There is no way to validate it. But, for your own personal use, a photocopy may be perfectly acceptable. But, I have a short memory, so my source would be the person who supplied me with the photocopy, I would link an image of the photocopy and I would include a note with as many specifics as I could. Things that would help stimulate my memory Unless you are researching for another, don’t worry about getting the sourcing to conform to anyone’s standards. It’s all changeable if you decide to change your methods later. Don From: Kirsty M. Haining [mailto:khain...@comcast.net] Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 3:02 PM To: LegacyUserGroup@LegacyUsers.com Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] sourcing questions Don, I’m confused a bit. If you’re looking at an image file of a document, are you saying that this image could be bogus because it’s not the actual paper document? Maybe I didn’t go to the courthouse, but I have a digital photocopy of the document that I am looking at. Why is this not sufficient for “what I, myself, know”? Thanks, Kirsty J 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
