Good point, Steve. When I began in the late 50's, our instructions were to check at home, ask, and write letters. There wasn't much emphasis on documentation, just information. I remember how tired my hand got just copying information. The copy machine was a miracle as much as the computer was. The emphasis on documentation came later, when the church had all these 4 generation sheets that didn't agree... The church still allows some judiciously estimated information if everything else is intact. I note that the new iteration of Family Tree allows the addition of the words about, before, and after on dates. That's a good thing because it alerts us to an estimation. You can also add "of" before a location and it stays if you don't click on the sync. But even with spelling variations, they want as full a name as possible. With the mis-combinations, without research, it's difficult to determine some relationships. So the name is the key piece of identification, even for ceremonial purposes. Some date guidelines I was taught for estimating--when all else fails: Wife 4 years younger than husband Marriage 1 year prior to first child First child 20 years younger than mother, born 1 year after parents' marriage Next child, 2 years after first child, and so on Obviously there are exceptions in real life and real problems creep in when you try to apply these over more than one generation. So documentation is far preferred. Jerry ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2013 17:09:37 -0600 From: Steve Kelsey <sjkelsey@msn.com> Subject: [LDS-WC] ancient history..... To: <lds-ward-consultant@rootsweb.com> Message-ID: <BLU0-SMTP1948B3DE78D330058AC1C36D1930@phx.gbl> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original One must also remember that much of the early work was done from memories and there was very little documentation available to these early members. My great grandfather's uncle did work for John Derry and others with very little information as to who they were and in fact usually they were listed as "friends" rather than relatives. Since I know of at least 10 people named John Derry who are relatives it was very difficult to know which one he did the work for. We are very, very blessed to have so much information so easy to get at. Having spent many hours searching census records on microfilm, or seaching the bmd indexes film by film for one surname, or trying to make a pedigree from the wills and probates in Herefordshire in the 1960's and 70's because the parish registers were not available I know what great strides we have made. One missing item which is not online which I believe would be a great benefit for English research is the post 1858 principal probate registry index for Great Britain and I am surprised that no one has considered putting it online as yet. In fact when I started in 1952 I went to the basement of the old Joseph Smith Building where the Relief Socity bldg is now. You had to requisition records at a window and sign them out. No copy machines==it was family group sheets and a pencil and something for notes. I am amazed at what our early forebearers, great and great great grandparents did at getting temple work done and how much they were able to do with how little they had. Steve Kelsey __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 8403 (20130602) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com