Gary Boivin, you wrote, from <gboivin@telusplanet.net>> on 12/14/01 4:07 AM: > A visit to Rootsweb, Ancestry or the LDS site... or any similar site, will > convince anyone that you can only use what you find as a guide. There are > people that don't bother verifying what they find... and then others see > what they have and take it as gospel... further confusing matters. Good advice to Coleman, Gary; I've only been doing genealogical research for about five years now, and I regret not having learned the following lesson, which I consider the first three rules of research, until I had been doing it for about year: 1. Document everything. 2. Accept every piece of information with one eyebrow raised cynically, while holding it in tweezers at arm's length. 3. When in doubt, see rule 1. At one point or another, every genealogist will come across two (or more) conflicting pieces of information about even the most basic stuff: Name, birth date, birthplace, death date, death place -- you name it. At that point, you have to resort to your documentation, your witnesses, to see which one has more credibility, but you also list the alternate info and save it... just in case. My own great-grandfather, who was a cop all his life, for Heaven's sakes, gave different birth dates to half a dozen different agencies over the years, depending on the age he had to be to do or get what he wanted at the time. I was an investigative reporter for a while, and most such reporters will tell you that you can generally print something if you have at least two independent sources for the information; three or four sources, if it's a critical story. Well, I've got six sources for the birth date I have currently accepted for my great-grandfather and I still I have the feeling that pinning it down is like nailing Jello to a tree. ***** Peter Morgan * Morgan:Newsletters * 604.683.3241 * pmorgan@morgan-news.com News that sells * #118, 970 Burrard St., Vancouver, B.C., V6Z 2R4, Canada My idea of a balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.