Yes, all records need to be cross referenced with other records & then sometimes it comes down to a judgment call anyway. I found one woman whose age varied 20 years over 4 decades. Another researcher pointed out sometime back that in the early years, a lot of people didn't actually know when they were born. I like to watch school attendance over the years and have as many records as possible for comparison. I do think the majority of census records were probably given by the lady of the house. _All records are useful. I don't mean to slight obituaries in the least, but they are taken under stressful conditions and sometimes not from the person with the best knowledge of the deceased persons background, especially where 2nd marriages are involved. I had an example of this last year which would be funny, if it weren't so sad. My mother had a brother Robert who had married Mary. Mary died in Jan. last year. They had raised a nephew of hers I'll call Eddy. He was the son of Mary's sister, and her sister's first husband. Mary's obituary listed Eddie "Smith" as a son, leading one to believe she was married twice, which she wasn't. The error was compounded in August of last year when Eddie died. Again, he was listed as a son, and his five half first cousins were listed as sisters. He had been married twice. The information was apparently taken from his second wife, who listed all of his children as her own. His mother had married a second time and a "brother" listed was actually a half-brother. Imagine a hundred years from now one of his great grand children running into _that brick wall. He was born in 1942 and I'm not sure even the 1950 census would be of any help figuring out who his true ancestors were. A birth certificate and maybe his Social Security record would be the about the only help in his case. This happens most frequently where second marriages are involved. I saw almost the same thing in a friend's obituary who died several years ago. Maybe a good example as to why we should all leave some kind of a family record. Maybe even a DNA sample in case genetically related disease surfaces in our descendants? Sam Thomas Shade wrote: > <Sigh> Too bad all censuses do not get info from mothers. In my family > history, one mother's age changes by more than 10 years from one census > to the next, and she was not always getting older. Sometimes I think > "Maybe a neighbor gave this info." Delores > > ==== MDGARRET Mailing List ==== > If you need help with this list, make sure to email the list administrator, Carol Hepburn, at chepburn@cox.net.