It would definitely be nice if we could stick "post-it" notes to things that we know are incorrect so it would be of help to others. I have a marriage bond for my gggg-grandfather where my gggg-grandmother's name is spelled Easton when it is really Eason. That incorrect spelling stumped me for a long time since the surname Eason was so prevalent in the area, but not Easton. A will finally proved it was Eason. On vital records, we cannot make changes and when I've asked some of the counties on Genweb, I was also told they could not correct any records. A lot of errors were made by not just people doing indexes, such as on the census indexes (books) but also by the census takers themselves. Many names were spelled incorrectly, even places of birth were incorrect. I have seen pages and pages of MS census records where a stamp was used for every line saying MS was place of birth! That was one lazy census taker. On any genealogy data, people should obtain the records to verify the data. Maybe newbies don't know this, but us oldies, who were researching before the Internet and have seen what errors are on the Internet and submitted to LDS, should know. On the latest info on the LDS site, I was able to print and save to my hard drive the actual death certificates from some of my TX Bowers. So you can go from the index of names to the actual certificate and see the information. Just remember to try different spellings just as we always have done. The death certificates were in .jpg format so you can save in a file and use any photo software to view and print from your computer. The digital copies for some census years, and also the 1850 slave schedules, are available, although much of the census for all decades are available through Heritage Quest from home via your library in many cities. Ancestry is also available at many libraries. However, I have never liked Ancestry's database search. If you want to narrow your search, it's almost impossible. If I mark the surname for TN only, I get names from other states with pages and pages to look through. While I have found things on Ancestry, I know that their database search could be better programmed. My work with programmers and databases tells me that they want people to take longer to search....it makes them more money for you to have to go through pages and pages of names even after you tried filtering your search. So, I think the images of birth, marriage and death records, and census records on LDS will be a big help. Errors on any index will always be a problem. It was difficult to read the writing in many cases and some microfilm is not that good either. So we have to keep that in mind. And with all the digitized records becoming available to us, it should become far easier to check out the family pedigrees submitted to LDS. I might add, on the DAR site, there are some patriot lines "on hold" for future applicants because original data is now in question. So, the advice is.....check out the data and prove your line and note what you have proved and what you haven't. I want to add another item my librarian pointed out. We live in an electronic world, BUT, we have already seen that photos we scanned in years ago are in formats unreadable by some current software. She advised that you backup your hard drive files where you save the digital copies but also print out a copy of things as well. She said some old genealogy CD's can no longer be read and what we have now may not be what's used in the future. Technology is changing fast and we have no idea whether that CD you made of your family will be readable 20 years from now nor do we know rate of deterioration either. Remember, paper contains acid and if you plan to donate copies to libraries or give to family, use acid-free paper. Lee, I think your topic was very important so I took the liberty to add to it and hope it helps someone. If anyone can think of anything else, please chime in. Donna Leola Ripperger wrote: > Be very careful about taking that information as gospel as I have > already found an error in Abraham Bowers and apparently the link to > report the error or write them is not working as I couldn't get a > message to go thru. They show in the 1880 census that Abraham is the > son of Daniel and Sara J. Bowers, born in Mo. and died in KS. and > this is incorrect. Daniel is the son of an Abraham Bowers who was > born in Tenn. and died in Eureka Springs, Ark., and had a farm at > Proctor, Mo. Daniel was my husband's gr-grandfather and Abraham his > gr-gr-grandfather. > > The LDS has done a lot of wondrous things for genealogy, but they are > not known for accuracy or correcting errors when found. I know they > take what is submitted to them and if they get bad information there > isn't much that can be done I guess, but I would think their indexers > should be more careful in doing their job. If one volunteers for > something one should do the best they can to be sure it is accurate > when they submit it in my estimation, same with doing genealogy. A > gathering of names is not genealogy as many people think it is. One > should verify, verify and verify again, not just be a name collector! > > Thanks for letting me express my thoughts today on my little > bandwagon. > > Lee Ripp. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "D. Hinson" <dhinson@suddenlink.net> > To: <BOWER-L@rootsweb.com>; <BOWERS-L@rootsweb.com>; > <skipper@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 9:36 AM > Subject: [BOWER] New data on LDS site > > > >> My local genealogy librarian mentioned that a lot of databases and >> images have been uploaded to the LDS Family History site recently. >> It >> appears more will be added and this is a trial. They also need >> volunteers to index. Look in the upper right corner for the red >> square >> where it says "Go" and click there. This is something we've all >> been >> hoping for since Ancestry has taken over so much which is now >> fee-based >> and especially since it's costing more in gas to get to genealogy >> libraries and courthouses. >> >> http://www.familysearch.org/ >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> BOWER-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> >> >> > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to BOWER-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >