This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/QJH.2ACIB/239.1.1.1 Message Board Post: How you document material is tied directly into what research is all about. Find information. Fit it in with previously collected information. Check for validity. Find more information. None of what we find appears spontaineously (I hope). You found information on James BYARS. WHERE? THAT is the documentation. Right now, all I can say is that Lloyd said that James BYARS.... Now, that you told me is one form of documentation. But difficult for others to verify, espically after one or the other of us dies. Information like (and this is just made up, not true): Lawrence County, AL, Land Deed Records, book 19, page 13-14; would be information anyone, at any time, could find, confirm and redocument. Lloyd found that information. Where? The next time I'm in Lawrence County doing research, I could eaisly find that record and read it myself --- and discover that the witness, someone of little or no interest to Lloyd, just happens to be the husband of my 6x great aunt. Unless I can find the original record, I would never discover such a thing. So I return to my original question. How do I politely request the documentation for information found here? It needn't be anything elaborate. Lots of my information documentation reads something like, "Memory of Lillian BYARS. Interview 26Jan1982 by S. BYARS". To me, information without documentation is just gossip. Valuable gossip maybe, but difficult to find and difficult to duplicate gossip. STEVE BYARS.