RE: "Verifying" in ref to and endorsement of Olivia's Memo I cannot imagine a "24,000 ancestor " 'site'...................do you mean all total for all users or just your own? The problem is that like so many other things in the tech era genealogy has become a sort of game, or fad...the more ancestors one can claim (with dates and names , seldom with real life stories and places---proven/documented) I've tried to say this before and was told I was being unkind, mean, etc......this isn't about c hatting and accepting "nicely" whatever is said or put on line.............I spent a lifetime in the study, training, and lifetime hands on work of research. Now everyone considers him/her self a historian/genealogist if he/she can work a computer. In the old days we wrote letters to others ...back and forth...and had time to work out mistakes and conjectures before those mistakes were spread world wide in print. The root of the growing problem goes ever further and deeper than Olivia's urge to 'verify'! Several years ago a series of complete mistakes....dates many years off base , names and marriages wrong...and all of those with definite correct sources which could have been cited.....but instead the individual simply lifted the old mistakes from a volume known to be filled with mistakes. Then she fed all that and more into a web site from whence it's been picked up and entered into others..............second hand, third hand and farther away from the primary sources.............................. What I continue to hope is that these sites will come up with easy methods for noting whether material is from primary sources (court records, family Bibles, etc) or from another wed site, etc.....maybe italics for the latter............... It's nice to write that you appreciate getting corrections, etc..............BUT....there may be be 'researchers' all over the world who lift the initial errors as 'fact', then continue on their way and never revisit the site from which they took the later-corrected error........WHERE does that leave the world of online research? Many seem to see this as just chatting via computers and are offended that their too-easy material is questioned. One particular Southern problem in research: And I know this from hearing it for over 40 years............we love telling stories and if we don't know a genuine one we're very happy to make up one to fill the gap! Over and over I see the phrase "according to family tradition"....and find that only one individual told the off base story, usually one which any serious historian would recognize as untrue. Before putting any old story you're told on line, check it out with others....in person or by phone! Thanks, Olivia. Ihese years online flawed info might gradually be phased out with a nice correction note to the person trying to help everyone but inadverantly making a human mistake. Olivia, as long as you have been at this hobby I'm sure you took a few minutes to go back to the post and write a nice note to the poster about the error and give him the right info so the following is not meant for you. In my experinces in this hobby over the years I would a thousand times rather get a nice note of correction on my errors than someone that finds my error to not bring it to my attention and then take much more time to write a put down and reprimand about my error to the whole list. That practice will make me and probably make other well intentioned people, trying to help others, hesitant to put their info on the www for fear of being chatised. Imo it's easier, and takes less time, to politely help someone that's posted bad info online than it is to point fingers and get into a gotcha thing. But back on topic, everyone has known since day one doing this stuff that you "must" verify anything you find before spending many years on the wrong track. The internet is the best invention that ever came down the pike for us but it has it's flaws. jerry ----- Original Message ----- From: "Olivia & Larry Braddy" <olbraddy@pineland.net> To: <gaeMANUE@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 9:32 AM Subject: [GAEMANUE] Scarborough > Here's a perfect example as to why we should not accept as fact what we > find on the Internet or what is posted on these Lists without making an > effort to check it out for ourselves. > > Sometime ago, the following was posted to this List: > > 1850 census for Muscogee County, GA, in the household of Richard Sizemore. > Info is as follows: > > Richard Sizemore 25 M Farmer South Carolina > Mary Sizemore 22 F Talbott County, Georgia > Sarah M. Sizemore 5/12 F Muscogee County, Georgia > Jackson Scarborough 24 M Laborer Burke County, Georgia > Eliza Scarborough 33 F Jefferson County, Georgia > George Scarborough 14 M Emanuel County, Georgia > Samuel H. Scarborough 10 M Muscogee County, Georgia > William A. Scarborough 7 M Muscogee County, Georgia > Lucy A. Scarborough 4 F Muscogee County, Georgia > James W. Scarborough 2 M Muscogee County, Georgia > > I have been beating my head against a wall trying to figure out who the > father of George could have been since I didn't think Jackson could have > fathered him at age 10, or even Samuel at age 14; William at age 17 was > pushing it. So who was the father of Eliza's first children? Was she > married before Jackson, or were they illegitimate? > > Today I checked this out for myself and found Jackson's age was listed as > 34, nor 24. Ten years in a person's age makes a lot of difference in > determining parentage. This was probably just a typo on the part of the > person who posted it, but we all need to be careful about copying stuff to > our files. > > Olivia > > -- > I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. > We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam. > SPAMfighter has removed 39001 of my spam emails to date. > Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len > > The Professional version does not have this message > Emanuel County GaGenWeb > http://www.thegagenweb.com/gaemanuel/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > GAEMANUE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message Emanuel County GaGenWeb http://www.thegagenweb.com/gaemanuel/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GAEMANUE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message No virus found in this incoming message. 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