On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:55:55 +0100, "Lesley Robertson" <l.a.robertson@tnw.tudelft.nl> wrote: > >"J. Hugh Sullivan" <Eagle@bellsouth.net> wrote in message >news:47b59ac2.5874016@newsgroups.bellsouth.net... >> On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:01:49 +0100, "Lesley Robertson" >> <l.a.robertson@tnw.tudelft.nl> wrote: >> >>> >>>"J. Hugh Sullivan" <Eagle@bellsouth.net> wrote in message >>>news:47b4f909.49688648@newsgroups.bellsouth.net... >>>> >>>> The National Genealogical Society is one in the US. >>> >>>We've had people trying to impose the US NGS rules on us before... >>>It wasn't very popular. To say the least. >>>Lesley Robertson >> >> I don't disagree EXCEPT popularity does not seem to me to be the only >> criterion for standardization. Frankly I think it discourages it. > >If people don't like it, they won't use it. >> >> We may not all need to be on the same page but, if I use your data, >> seems like I should know what page you are on. > >True. There's a simple answer - whatever one does, and however they do it, >quote the sources in a form that lets other people find them to check them >if they want to. Assume that anything not quoting sources is not reliable. >You can impose a set of standards on a set of professionals, but most people >are doing this as a hobby - you can't force them to do anything they don't >want as you have no sanction if they don't comply. >Lesley Robertson I have no intention of forcing anyone to do anything. A number of trees on the Internet say Owen was the father of Russell (the line doesn't matter). I can easily disprove that - but it doesn't remove the inaccuracy. I wish he was Russell's father - it would have been so easy to accept and run with it if I wasn't capable of more. A number of people say Russell had a middle name. There is no authoritative source that confirms that - it's hearsay. It's like saying he had eyes in the back of his head or wings and could fly - you can't prove it wrong. Almost everybody says Russell was born in 1789. I can prove that wrong - he was provably born in 1790. It takes a bulldog math enthusiast to prove it. All that can be sourced to the Family History Library, Ancestry.com and other sources. So much for sources without adequate confirmation. A lot of people are just lousy genealogists - and a bunch of them don't seem to care. Hugh

"J. Hugh Sullivan" <Eagle@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:47b60295.32453555@newsgroups.bellsouth.net... > All that can be sourced to the Family History Library, > Ancestry.com and other sources. So much for sources without adequate > confirmation. A lot of people are just lousy genealogists - and a > bunch of them don't seem to care. > But that shows that the system works - they give their source, which is readily seen to be unreliable and the info can therefore be discarded. One of my other incarnations has been as a member of an editorial board for a scientific journal. Even when deling with professionals, with apparently fairly well-enforced professional standards, I've still been saddened by the low standards of research and historical verification by some. It's going to happen, the only thing to do is find work-arounds. "Everyone says, therefore it's true" is the fastest way to start alarm bells ringing. Lesley Robertson

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 11:12:30 +0100, "Lesley Robertson" <l.a.robertson@tnw.tudelft.nl> wrote: >"J. Hugh Sullivan" <Eagle@bellsouth.net> wrote in message >news:47b60295.32453555@newsgroups.bellsouth.net... >> All that can be sourced to the Family History Library, >> Ancestry.com and other sources. So much for sources without adequate >> confirmation. A lot of people are just lousy genealogists - and a >> bunch of them don't seem to care. >> > >But that shows that the system works - they give their source, which is >readily seen to be unreliable and the info can therefore be discarded. That's fine if one wishes to be nothing more than a wheat and chaff separator. I want someone to do that for me. >One of my other incarnations has been as a member of an editorial board for >a scientific journal. Even when deling with professionals, with apparently >fairly well-enforced professional standards, I've still been saddened by the >low standards of research and historical verification by some. It's going to >happen, the only thing to do is find work-arounds. It's going to happen but why must it? I think those people need to be embarrassed. The problem is that, once generally accepted, the thing grows exponentially. A wrong repeated by enough people becomes right. >"Everyone says, therefore it's true" is the fastest way to start alarm bells >ringing. Eliminate everything that is untrue, and whatever remains, however impossible it seems, must be true. I believe A. Conan Doyle caused Sherlock Holmes to say that. Hugh