In a message dated 2/14/99 10:33:48 AM Central Standard Time, GREEN-D- request@rootsweb.com writes: << Sandy, that makes sense but if you were to come across books (sm., med., or lg.) on your ancestors that others had writen would you still try to go back & verify everything in them or do a few & then take the word writen down ?? If people before us had taken the time to do the research years ago, shouldnt we believe what they wrote ??? Mary Lou >> No I don't think we should just blankly believe what they wrote - every family history book I've seen has errors in it. Some just a few, some quite a lot. More methods and techniques and records are available to us now that werent available back then, so I still think it is a good idea to verify the information, unless the author has given a footnote with a reference to his documentation. then I guess it would be up to the current researcher to decide if they felt that was a reliable resource or not. I do think most of what is written is valid, but we can't just take it as fact just because we see it in print. For instance one of my other lines is the Fowler family, and there were two books written on the history of the Fowler family. One shows my ancestor's line and some other lines differently from the other book. And there seem to be alot of differences in the information reflected in the two books. So which one do you believe? I don't have either of the books at this point, so I am not sure which would be most reliable - maybe the most recently published? Still I will try to prove it out to my satisfaction. I don't think it makes sense to reinvent the wheel - that's why I am all for sharing information! Others are welcome to any information I have that they need. But you do have to be sure that the information you find - even if its printed in a book, (and as someone else pointed out - even DAR information has been known to have errors) - make sure its reliable. Dee