Good morning, Friends & Cousins! It's Monday morning, and I am enjoying reading the postings to the Barger mailing list. Thank you very much, Kim for posting the information from the Barger Journal, and thanks also to Harman Clark who spotted the discrepancy. This is exactly how I hoped this mailing list would function. From time to time, we all discover conflicting information in the records, and are faced with the problem of deciding what to believe. It has been my practice, to show both sets of information in my research, together with footnotes, so anyone reading my work will be able to judge for themselves. Even when I have 3 or 4 items with one piece of information and only one with a different version, I show both. Experience has taught me that bad information, no matter how often repeated, is still wrong. It is also true that the truth often pops up in the most unlikely of places. Harman Clark asked about the reliability of Alvan Lyell Barger's Journals. If that wonderful gentleman, who laid the groundwork for much of our research, were still alive, I suspect he would explain that his research was as good as its sources. He corresponded with hundreds of people and received responses from all parts of the country. Imagine how vast that project was, considering that there were no computers, no internet, and in some parts of the country, little schooling. Much of his research took place during the depths of the Great Depression when the price of paper and postage might well have been a sacrifice for some of the people who corresponded with him. (I would love to have a glimpse at some of the letters he received!) Also, it was true then, and remains a fact, that official records are not always right, and when people copy records, mistakes can be made. Memories fade and become blurred. As family researchers, we encounter all these problems. The best we can do is to try to be accurate, and to verify information which appears suspect. Well, the moral of this message is: "Trust no one's research but your own - and for heaven's sake, double check that!" Over the years, I have heard those words repeated a great number of times by Sue Jackson, a lovely lady who volunteers at our local LDS Family History Center. I can't think of better advice. Thank you all for your participation. I just love reading your postings. Susan Barger Donahue BARGER FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY 411 East Roosevelt Road Wheaton, IL 60187 suzid@tripod.net