From my own experience I have ran into material on certain websites about my ancestors that proved not to be true once I did my homework.
Let me just say the first rule of thumb when using online Geneaological sources should be to research, research and research some more!
One should only use what you find online as a "clue" to help you postulate a theory so to speak. Have you ever heard the old adage: "Nothing is written in stone"? It is the truth! Don't get me wrong.I am very thankful there are many many resources at our fingertips and that others like me take the time out of their schedules to put said information together and to share it with other folks who may be related. But nothing frustrates me more than to have to take hours out of my time to clean up someone else`s mistakes. We all must begin somewhere and looking back over my own research I can see where I too made mistakes in the beginning. It is a learning process that develops with time. Never take anything for granted.
There are lots of articles written online concerning this subject and I will share one with you in this post. However, I want to state a couple of tips of my own to go along with it.
Family Stories- We all have them, we all love to hear them. But we should look at them as just that: "A story" nothing else. If we are unable to back those stories up with good, solid documentation then its sad to say, they are nothing but hearsay. Let me give you an example. A lot of stories are filled with bits and pieces of the truth. For years my family has stated that my Maternal Grandmother`s married name was Reeves. I spent months if not years trying to track Grandmother down using this name alone. I visited the graveyards, I went to courthouses, I researched documents online and nothing was coming up! Finally over the course of my research I learned that it was not my Great Grandmother with the name of Reeves, it was her Mother! So here I was looking for her under the name Rachael Reeves and turning up nothing, all the while going back and forth with my family who swore that was her name. I stumbled upon a marriage record between my 2nd Great Grandmother Elizabeth Acord and she had married a man named William Reeves. I was able to put a biography together for her and to contribute some information that others had been researching for a long while and coming up empty handed. The original story also stated my Great Grandmother was Cherokee. I have yet to prove that, thus the half truth I mentioned.
So as you can see, I spent quite a lot of time running in circles with just a little bit of information to go on. I wasted time and dollars in my effort. That is why it is so important to me to have good, solid documentation for our efforts.
Just because an article of information is published in a well known periodical does not mean it is complete truth. You have to research the publication in question and find out if they have a verification process in place where they verify information before they publish it. If not, again anything they publish just becomes hearsay on the part of the author.
Realizing what you have found: Another thing I want to touch on is being able to realize just what is that you have found. Let me give another example. I am in the midst of a research project on my Great x2 Grandmother. I have found many inconsistencies in information floating around online. There are databases out there that can be of a great help to a researcher such as myself, however, we must realize that people like ourselves are the ones who put the information into those databases. We must also realize that perhaps great ole Uncle Bob gave Aunt Mary that story and so based on what she "heard" from him she entered it into that database without so much as one resource to back it up. Lets face it, sometimes our memories fail us, even on the best of days.
A Good Article covering this subject entitled: The Uses and Abuses of Online Genealogy by Gary B. Hoffman, makes for a great read! Until next time.....
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