Let me suggest that we approach the long-term assembly of records for the Degruy Family web site in a more systematic organized method. When I started working in genealogy, I realized that I didn't know a lot and bought and read Emily Croom's Unpuzzling Your Past. I subsequently bought and read her volume, The Genealogist's Companion and Sourcebook. (and have the more recent editions now) What interested me is that (this is my interpretation) she advocated using the regular lines of approach - older relatives, family records, public records, etc. However, she acknowledged that she was not always purely systematic in her approach. Where it was possible to use vital statistics, public records, census data, etc., she would do so. However, she allowed for going off on tangents and roaming through related families and data. People doing research on the Daspit and/or St. Amant families, the Fazende, Harang and other families might have information about the Degruy family from the other family's point of view which is not always what we look for. All of us have particular portions of the Degruy family that we are interested in, as well as other ancestors. We want to include all of those portions while working on the overall picture. What records should people focus on systematically while allowing other records to be thrown in as we feel like it? Note to Bonnie Wood: I appreciate how computer catalogs help me find things, but sometimes I miss the ability to browse through paper card catalogs at the library. This seems to me what we want to do - assemble all the data and be able to organize it, while retaining the flexibility to go off on tangents. Just some thoughts.I'm not sure if I am as clear in my presentation as I am in my intent. Wally

Hi Wally, Well you bring up an important issue and one I've thought about myself: the question of our methodology in presenting this data.....what are we able to do and what are our limitations [due to the medium of our web site organization, over which we have no control]. Right now I think we are just arranging the material by last name, first name, kind of record and year of event [I'm talking about BMD records]. I've wondered about that....Should we have an individual attached to everything we know about him or her [BMD... all together] . And what about relationships? Suppose we want to search for someone, but we're not sure of his or her name. We know, however, that he or she is so-and-so's daughter or husband or sister.... etc. How do we find them? How can we indicate relationships? What will our web site allow us to do????? I can tell you... this is a challenge! ;-) But a pleasant one... in that we have such largesse to work with and because we are beginning to recognize the enormous contribution which is being made. On my other web site [my New Orleans Evans family], I have been able to upload pedigree charts.... so others can click on a file and see a pdf of an entire line. This may be possible someday for this web site. But, as we do not want to put up "unproved" material... we can only do this when we have BMD records to support each link of the chain.... so that may be a while in coming. One of my thought is that individual members could start with close at hand records [minus actual names of living members to protect identity].... Each of us probably knows more definitely the folks in our direct lines 1-3 generations back. So if we each took responsibility for getting and contributing that definite data, we would have a foundation for more extensive work and more extensive linking down the road. What will help is if each of us really begins to comprehend two aspects of this work: contribution and collaboration. Thanks for your thoughts. I know I look forward to hearing the thoughts of other researchers on these matters. Renee slideaus wrote: >Let me suggest that we approach the long-term assembly of records for >the Degruy Family web site in a more systematic organized method. > >Wally > > > >