It is always to have some idea of topics and a small amount of what to believe and not, sorta like UFO's even tho the people who write books, like Out of the flame, he lived with the Cherokee 40 years, is still views from another culture and the end result is not always the best, but it is nice to see some one documented something for the people. Before taking it all as fact , take it as reading until you know what could be facts. Dan M ----- Original Message ----- From: "jay earl" <ten8csi@yahoo.com> To: <CherokeeGene-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 7:15 PM Subject: Re: [CherokeeGeneCommunity] Out of the Flame > Good advice, Joyce. I kind of did it backward. I never really relied on Family Tree's because they too, can be flawed. I started with looking up all the census I could get my hands on, finding the Dawes numbers and ordering their packets from NARA. Based on those and other info I had already dug up, I added to my docs with birth, marriage, CN re-admission, death certificates, military records etc. However, I am blessed by a family fairly easy to find things out about. Many others are not so lucky. Yes, books play a part of solving a puzzle but gathering substantiating evidence to uphold one's research is integral to really solving the puzzle. I, too, have found errors in books, but that only makes me want to write my own all the more. ;) > ====================>>