Thought this was worth passing on. Audrey {eters http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/gencomp/1877.asp What Are We Going To Do About Bad Data on the Internet? – Patricia Law Hatcher EDITOR'S NOTE: See also "Thoughts on Correcting Bad Data on the Internet" by Patricia Law Hatcher. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- One of the advantages of electronic publishing on the Internet is that, unlike paper, it can be changed easily so mistakes won’t be perpetuated. Right? I wonder. Last summer I wrote an opinion piece for GC about poor Sarah Odding. The information I found about her on the Internet was clearly conflicting, flawed, and—no surprise—undocumented. Somewhere along the way she’d become a data element instead of a woman who had once been a living, breathing person who was now a part of the heritage of thousands of American descendants. The point of the article was that I had realized that all of us have ancestors stored in our databases we collected early in our research and have verified. I suggested we take care to publish on the Web only what we have worked on ourselves. Although Sarah had been dead for three centuries, I felt sorry for her—she isn’t even one of my ancestors. I’d become so attached to poor Sarah Odding that I gave up a day of my own research in Salt Lake City to track down her real father. (The results were published in The American Genealogist concurrent to the GC article; both articles referenced each other.) I thought how fortunate it was that Sarah’s incorrect ancestry and personal information was merely in electronic files on the Web, which could be changed easily. Communication on the Internet is fast—virtually instantaneous. How wonderful to know that Sarah’s history could be put back together again quickly thanks to the electronic age. Alas. Recently I searched for Sarah again. None of the sites had been corrected. Even worse, new ones repeating the misinformation had mushroomed. I even found two additional instances of incorrent ancestry as my article was being edited. This was depressing. So not everybody got the message. I kind of figured I was preaching to the choir. But surely as more and more descendants got word, I thought we’d see the correct ancestry appearing on new pages and spreading like the rings from a stone thrown into a pond, demonstrating that there is value in Web genealogy. Not so. The really depressing part of this whole experience is that the correct ancestry appeared on only one new site, and it was apparently generated with software that did not support documentation. Instantaneous spread of information? I don’t think a year can be considered instantaneous. So what are we going to do? Most genealogists recognize that lots of folks throwing their pedigrees onto the Web are name collectors rather than researchers. Name collectors don’t necessarily understand that genealogy and family history are hard work. But I don’t think it occurred to most of us that the vast majority seem not to be researchers. So what are we going to do? Do we start a campaign to send e-mail flagging every known incorrect ancestry and, in the process, quit doing research ourselves for lack of time? Do we split genealogy into two disparate worlds—name and real genealogists? Is that division overly simplistic? Do we decide to ignore the situation and say that it’s OK for people to happily collect names of someone else’s ancestors (or even of nonexistent individuals) and disseminate the misinformation? The first option isn’t practical (although not a bad idea in moderation). But I’m not willing to support the other two. Whenever I’m tempted to utter the modern equivalent of "let them eat cake," I think of my cousin in Nebraska. I live ten minutes from a major research library; she lives on a cattle ranch. I do most of my research in microfilm and published abstracts; she does a major portion through communication. For her the Internet has been a major boon. Does she deserve the correct ancestors any less than I? I don’t—more importantly, I won’t—believe that. So what are we going to do? Patricia Law Hatcher, CG, is a technical writer, instructor, and professional genealogist.