Dear Bettijane and all, Thank you Connie, Norma, Wilma, Velma and others for coming to my defense, but I feel that I should personally respond. I apologize to you, Bettijane, if you had the mistaken impression that I was patronizing you and attacking your genealogical character. Whether you had one year or fifty years of genealogical experience is entirely immaterial. It makes me sad to think that such an emotional misunderstanding has been festering within you for such a long time and that you erupt on the list, causing some to state that they may unsubscribe because of the non-genealogical content. Others have given their opinions on the proper procedures to follow when attempting to change official records. I stand by my statement that no reputable genealogist would take it upon himself/herself to change an official record. Records can be changed. My own brother went to his county of birth to obtain a birth certificate needed for a passport. There was no record of his birth in the county. Investigation revealed that the attending doctor had registered the birth in the county he, the doctor, lived in, and not in the county that my brother had been born in. My brother succeeded in getting one county to delete his birth record and to add his birth in the county where he was actually born. It took effort and work, but it was done. Adoptees normally have a new birth certificate issued to replace the original one, which is destroyed or sealed. Which birth certificate is correct? There are few absolutes in genealogy. Others have mentioned how often a single document has several different spellings for a person's name. I could almost guarantee that any list member who follows his/her ancestral and collateral lines through a Federal Census and/or a State Census will find at least one female ancestor who lied about her age. It is common knowledge that many people lied about their ages on marriage licenses and on military enlistment papers. Parents often lied to their children about their wedding date, knowing the children were not likely to go to the courthouse to check it out. The date chosen would be a good 9 months plus after the marriage and .before the date of birth of the oldest child. The official courthouse record of the marriage date might be only four months before the birth. Dates chiseled into granite grave markers in cemeteries have been found to be incorrect. We do not attempt to change these erroneous records. We make note of them, and use what we call the preponderance of evidence method to evaluate them. Our goal should be complete accuracy. Many of us then publish or otherwise share our findings with as wide a group as we can. What satisfies one group may not satisfy another, at a different time. There are descendants of a Mendenhall family in Louisa County. For almost 200 years the family believed that the progenitor, Thomas, had married Jane Strode. Jane Strode's family ancestry was carried back several generations. Within the past year new documents have been found that show that the wife of Thomas Mendenhall was Jane Stroud, and that the ancestry of Jane Stroud was different from that of Jane Strode. So 200 years of belief are suddenly thrown out. The Louisa County Genealogical Society operates a Heritage Center Library, and I normally tell our visiting researchers that we would appreciate having copies of their family research findings, whether they publish in book form or have only family group sheets or narratives. How many of you have sent such information on the families you are researching? Yes, a few of you are proprietary and feel that if anyone else wishes such information that they should do the work and bear the expense themselves. Fortunately, the majority of you feel that sharing is the order of the day. Several of you have donated your family findings to our Heritage Center Library in some form or other, and for this we are appreciative. That means that a person who comes to research at our Heritage Center does not have to start at square one and repeat all of the research done by someone else. So let us close this subject and mutually share and cooperate in our genealogical research for our mutual benefit. From Keith Street Keith/Connie Street ckcasey@netins.net 325 Franklin Ave, Wapello, IA 52653-1515 319-523-8164 -----Original Message----- From: Bettijane Larson <bjlarson@uswest.net> To: IALOUISA-L@rootsweb.com <IALOUISA-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Friday, March 17, 2000 9:07 PM Subject: Re: Shellabarger >Hi: I appreciated your feelings in your letter below. I know you were kind >enough to thank them for their assistance to many on the list, and I >appreciate that, too. I got the same type of disgusting response when I >asked to have a note added to a marriage record of MY Grandparents, using >the correct surname for her. Some records can be as wrong as the people >writing them are only human too. That, Keith told me twicee was wrong to >do, "Because no Genealogist would do that!" Made me feel like I was the >smallest dot at the bottom of the list, after 12 years of research, and I >certainly was disappointed with my treatment. I guess we are to continue to >use false information, even though we know the correct information, and >would like to share it corrected with anyone else in the same lines. An Iowa >Descendant, Bj. > -----Original Message----- > From: PAPARG@aol.com <PAPARG@aol.com> > To: IALOUISA-L@rootsweb.com <IALOUISA-L@rootsweb.com> > Date: Tuesday, March 14, 2000 3:29 PM > Subject: Re: Shellabarger > > > In a message dated 3/14/00 8:17:17 AM Pacific Standard Time, > ckcasey@netins.net writes: > > << IALOUISA-L@rootsweb.com >> > > Dear Connie Street: > EXCUUUUUSE ME !!! Just who appointed you "Etiquette Monitor" for the > Louisa Co list. Normally, I would only send this letter to Connie Street >but > I thought it important to let all the other list members know that the > Etiquette Monitor is standing over us all waiting to pounce if your >posting > wasn't up to her standards. > > First of all, let's get the facts straight. > 1. The e-mail to which you are referring was not even addressed to YOU. >I > fail to see why you think it is your concern to correct this (in your >mind) > oversight. If it is such a problem, I would hope that George or Verna >would > bring this to my attention. I could then have explained to them and I >think > it would have been perfectly clear why I responded to George instesd of > Verna. But no, Connie Street, "Miss Etiguette Monitor for the list" had >to > butt in and not only embarrass me and probably George and Verna May by > broadcasting her letter to the entire list and thereby making it >necessary > for me to respond back to her and the list, but has shown the entire >list > that she did not have the facts straight before she made the assumption >that > I had made an "LIST ETIQUETTE ERROR". My My My, shame on Miss >Etiquette. > > 2. I did actually read the entire e-mail including the signing of the >letter > and I then compared it to the FROM address and I saw the >difference. > That FROM address had the name George May at the end in parenthesis. >Since > the name Verna never appeared anywhere in the letter, I concluded that >It > would be propper to use the name George in the greating as the return >address > indicated. > > This whole mess could have been avoided had you (Connie) had reacted >more > appropriately. You could have just minded your own business or, If this >was > such a concern to you (Connie), you could have emailed me directly and >not > involved the entire list. An appropriate email to me on the subject >would > have resulted in the simple explanation I stated above and the matter >would > have been resolved and none of us would have suffered this >embarrassment. > > I do realize that Connie and Keith are icons to this list and I do >respect > that. They do a lot of very helpful work for a lot of people including >me. I > do want that to continue. The email Connie Street sent to me and the >list was > totally inappropriate and I felt required an answer both to the list and >to > Connie. The wording of the email sent by Connie to me was inappropriate >and > the email subject was inappropriate to be sent to the list. > > In conclusion, I sincerely hope that George and Verna May will accept my > apology for getting them mixed up in this situation and will respond to >the > email that I sent to them. I would also like to apologize to the list >for my > part in this embarrassing moment. I hope that this matter is now >resolved and > that both Connie and I can continue as responsible members of the Louisa >Co. > Iowa list > > Ron Garmoe > > > ==== IALOUISA Mailing List ==== > Don't forget to check out the web sites for southeastern Iowa families. > http://www.rootsweb.com/~ialouisa > http://www.rootsweb.com/~ialcgs > http://www.rootsweb.com/~iahenry > http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~jennings > > > > >==== IALOUISA Mailing List ==== >Don't forget to check out the web sites for southeastern Iowa families. >http://www.rootsweb.com/~ialouisa >http://www.rootsweb.com/~ialcgs >http://www.rootsweb.com/~iahenry >http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~jennings