Thanks Lee, I was reminded this morning that even original documents may contain inaccuracies and is a reason to not rely solely on a single source. When our oldest son registered for a sports league, we ordered a certified copy of his birth certificate. Everything looked ok EXCEPT he was a she according to the document. A quick note to the county and we had a corrected certified copy…with female crossed out and male written above it!
My brother was born while my dad was overseas during WWII. Church records showed his birth 9 months after the recorded marriage. But, letters from him that my mom had kept hidden showed that he was conceived several months prior to the marriage. (Not uncommon during the war, but as far as the church was concerned, they accepted what my parents said. It was asked whether there was concern that a photocopy could be faked. Hopefully, those examples from my immediate family show that inaccuracies creep in for many rather innocent reasons. I can look at Chris and see he’s not female, that was ‘better’ evidence than the original source document. The many letters from my dad to my mom were ‘better’ evidence than Church or County documents. It’s why I won’t be locked in to conventional wisdom regarding sources. Don From: Lee Bruch [mailto:lbr...@nwlink.com] Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 6:14 PM To: LegacyUserGroup@LegacyUsers.com Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] sourcing questions 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. 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
