What is the problem with list members accepting divergent opinions? In my mind the alternative is for falsehoods and ignorance to prevail. I have seldom seen direct, personal insults on this list. I don't think Jill Ching would tolerate them for long. What is known from long experience is that many people have a problem with conflicts in information, even though they are inevitable, and from a multitude of tongues. They see differences about family research information as personal differences, even though they clearly aren't personal and should not be taken that way. There is another side to the coin that involves postings on the list. There is the side that feels put down because their information is challenged. But there is another bias that stems from resentment against information posted by genealogists who have been researching the family for decades. The latter can be just as tyrannical as the former. In an information age, people who would leave the list because they see a challenge to their information are going to have to decide whether to join the great debate featuring a variety of opinions from an assortment of cultures or languish alone with their more narrowly drawn opinions. I've learned in recent days on the web: My grandfather was David, not Daniel Stoffer as I knew him and I don't have it documented; that my father and a brother were born a month apart; that my Aunt Ruth, still living, born in 1906, was 94 in 1997. And I am not one bit personally offended. I would like to reserve the right to challenge that information without its source feeling that I am engaging in a personal attack. And I did get assailed on another list for venturing my opinion about my own family. There were additional Patrick Hamricks. And successive Benjamins, Jameses and Williams, Marys, Anns, Elizabeths and Sarahs. As a matter of fact, I count 171 Elizabeths in my database. Tressie Nealy once asked me, what do such names suggest to you? I didn't regard the enlightenment as a put down. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Patrick Hamrick, believed born about 1689 and documented in the early years of 1700, was not the son of a man who came to America in 1731, although that is not technically impossible. The actual erection of the monument was news to me. I'll take your lessons on etiquette under advisement so long as they are aimed at people who originate criticisms as personal attacks, and hope you add a rejoinder to people who take personally what ought to be routine challenges to family research information. But I will come down on the side of support of robust challenges to information. There is no better example than the Jones book controversy. Although Patrick has become well documented and southern descendants are documented, the idea is that anyone who chooses to state that, say, Patrick Jr., was Patrick's son are themselves put down as tyrants when the truth is that they are merely saying what they believe as a result of years of research or citing their research. One of the things that seems obvious as a non-North Carolinian is that if people feel so strongly that they are descended from Hans Jerg, they should seek to prevail in the argument by documenting his patriarchy. I don't think anyone is asking more than that. I also have asked the question raised by you about what happened any descendants of Hans Jerg? There wasn't that much of a problem with the existence of records in Pennsylvania. I hope members of this list will see to it that it doesn't degenerate into the kind of factual reporting practiced by the National Enquirer or that they will set a higher standard. I regard everyone on this list as a probable relative or a friend laboring in the same vineyard. I have had a few exchanges of information. I have nothing but good feeling, personally, for everyone. The Hamrick list is the largest and most active one I'm on so it must be doing something right. I can tell you on another list I'm on you would be unable to post the information on Hans Jerg that you did without documentation. Life's own experiences have taught me the folly of trying to persuade others to accept my opinion, despite a natural inclination and professional training in trying to get people to do so. dhamrick@neo.rr.com Dan Hamrick 402 23rd Street NW Canton OH 44709 Phone and fax: 330-454-2376 ---------- >From: Bill Davenport <davenport@brooksdata.net> >To: HAMRICK-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: [HAMRICK-L] Patrick/George >Date: Tue, Jan 4, 2000, 9:52 AM > >Good Morning: > >JR, I have most certainly received your comments as well as those others >who took the time to write. You’ll have to bear with me if I do not >respond as quickly as you might like. In addition to other aspects of >living, I’m researching several other names and Hamrick is not really >top priority. At the moment, I’m reflecting on life in the year 2000. >As an eighteen year old serving in the Regular United States Navy, my >shipmates and I discussed the possibility of living until the next >century, and what it might be like. Don’t know about the others but I >made it to 2000 and I’m proud to be here. > >Back to the comments. I appreciate them, even the references to >membership in the Flat Earth Society. Thank you all for the information >you’ve passed along. Everything helps. > >It would unrealistic to think that everything we come across is error >free. We don’t know if written records were recorded correctly. We >don’t know if persons reading and transcribing records have interpreted >them accurately. With very little information about the stones at the >Street Hamrick home place, I have no way of knowing whether they are >recent or have been in place many years, or who placed them there. I >did notice that the monument to Patrick Hamrick was erected in September >1999. It seems to echo exactly what you preach. Was it built by >supporting members of this list? ( only joking) > >Returning to the regurgitation of bad genealogy, if Patrick Hamrick was >the first, where are all the Patrick Hamricks? If Moses Richard did not >exist, why did Price Hamrick have sons named Moses and Richard? If >Price’s father was Jeremiah, why don’t we see a son named Jeremiah? Why >are there so many George Hamricks both laying down and walking around? >(These irritants, Patrick supporters, just won’t go away, will they?) > >>From available records there apparently was a ship named Snow Lowther >and it came to Philadelphia in 1731 with a load of Germans, among whom >was a man named Hans Jeurg Hamerich. He apparently married another >German named Nancy Cook. They likely had children. What happened to >those children? Did they just vanish? > >How did the folks in North Carolina know about Moses Richard and Hans >George? Were they just ignorant hillbillies who knew nothing? Did they >just pull names out of thin air so as to confuse subsequent >generations? Did they go so far as to erect phony tombstones? > >On the LDS site, upon entering the name Patrick Hamrick, one file says >he was the son of Hans George. Ironic, huh? > >After I sent my original message to the list, I received a couple of >messages from people who said they no longer send anything to the list >because they had been put down for whatever dissenting opinions they >expressed. That isn’t nice, Patrick descendants. Even if 95% of the >list supports the Patrick notion, that doesn’t make it correct. > >Anyway, folks, I don’t have all the answers and I don’t think you do, >either. Hopefully, we’ll learn more. Maybe something that will satisfy >everybody. > >Bill Davenport > >