Tracking Down Original Sources

Today I am going to talk about tracking down original sources. This is something that I have been doing lately. With so many electronic databases it is so easy just to click and add something to your tree without giving it a second thought. I have ran into a lot of misguided information by doing that very thing!

I am going to use an example from my husbands family tree. We have been trying to find out the maiden name of his 4th Great Grandmother who has been known to us as simply: Polly and nothing more.

There is a marriage record on Ancestry for them and it reads as follows:

• Name: Abraham TINKER
• Birth Place: NC
• Birth Year: 1780
• Spouse Name: Polly
• Number Pages: 1

Source Citation: Source number: 794.000; Source type: Electronic Database; Number of Pages: 1; Submitter Code: WRP.

Source Information:

Yates Publishing. U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. Original data: This unique collection of records was extracted from a variety of sources including family group sheets and electronic databases. Originally, the information was derived from an array of materials including pedigree charts, family history articles, querie.

It was my original intention to try and see if I could track down a copy of the marriage record. I decided to do a little digging on this particular source.  During this process I ran across a blog entitled The Ancestry Insider.   This blog had a post that explains in detail how to find the original source that submitted this record. It turns out the U.S and International Marriage Records  database is information that has been submitted to Ancestry via a company called Yates Publishing. 

Now with that being said one must pay close attention to the following wording underneath the Source Information:

  "This unique collection of records was extracted from a variety of sources including family group sheets and electronic databases. Originally, the information was derived from an array of materials including pedigree charts, family history articles, querie."

Family Group Sheets? Articles? Queries? So one can just throw together some names on a sheet of paper and submit it and it gets added to the database! To me that is like plain ole "word of mouth" with no legal document to back it up it becomes hearsay. With the record noted above it specifically states the source for this particular record is: Electronic Database.  So now the question for me was how do I find out who originally submitted that information into the electronic database? Enter The Computerized Ancestor.

You can go to their website and enter the information in the search box and that record pops up along with the submitter code noted above as WRP. You will come to a page with the information from that record along with a link to click and see all records from that particular person who originally submitted the record. So, I click on the link and it brings me to a page filled with all the records that this researcher has submitted. I scroll all the way to the bottom underneath the list of records and the submitters information is listed there:

The Researcher who provided this family information is:

WILLIAM R. PHILLIPS

MEMPHIS, TN

 The identifying file is: PHILLIP2

Now that I have found the original source, or what I believe to be the original source I am going to see if I can contact Mr. Phillips and see where he got his information. Am I the only one that noted the place and date of the actual marriage do not even appear in this record?  I have more to say about this particular record that has nothing at all to do with the source, but that is for a later post.