SINCE Dr Bill has once again indicated that this list is, metaphorically speaking, on its last legs, he is obviously trying to stir us into some kind of activity to save it! Well, here is my attempt to get a bit of debate - and controversy - going. May I make the observation that, much as I love the inception and advance of Internet genealogy, I fear it, too. Why? Because those of us who are traditional, longtime genealogists and family historians (i.e. from that remote time before computers were invented!) can see that along with its undoubted benefits it is bringing also a tide of - dare I say it? - garbage and thoroughly bad research to our great hobby. Those of us who learnt genealogy the old-fashioned way, i.e. from books written by real experts and then from years of hard-nosed practice out there in the field, see a lack of discipline and understanding of even the most fundamental knowledge of research techniques that is quite alarming. It is patently obvious to me that there are people on this list, and other lists, who have never even attempted to read a book on how to trace your ancestry and pedigree. There seems to be a naive belief among so many newcomers that all you have to do is log on to the Internet, press a few keys and, hey presto, you can have your family tree back to William the Conqueror by teatime! It is not so. True genealogy is only learnt from years of experience of sitting in Record Offices poring over dusty old documents and patiently trying to piece together the very fragmented pieces of an enormous jigsaw puzzle. It demands time, patience, discipline, and an ability to grasp facts and to filter the truth from the specious, the reality from the wishful thinking and the patently bogus. A sensible approach to online genealogy demands that the practitioner at least does a little homework first before launching themselves into the big wide world of the Internet. Otherwise, to give an analogy, it is like trying to drive a Formula One racing car before you have learnt to ride a bicycle. I find it hard to credit some of the questions I see asked in genealogy mailing lists. Some exhibit such a degree of ignorance - especially of geography and the nature of research - that one wonders how the questioner can possibly ever assemble sufficient knowledge to even begin to tackle their family tree. They will proceed in ignorance and with more hope than knowledge. And what, then, at the end of it? They will upload onto the Internet, there for all time, data and information which is a mixture of spurious guesswork and blatant untruths. This dubious data will be downloaded by others, equally ignorant, and thus be perpetuated for future generations to misapply even further. May I give an example? The Broderbund World Family Tree CDs are riddled with pedigrees that are a joke! I have personally noted on some of them a number of American families claiming descent from a non-existent daughter of William the Conqueror!!! This, of course, is nothing new. Fraudulent pedigrees existed in 19th and early 20th century editions of such supposedly respectable works as Burke's Peerage. But at least these were ultimately exposed by proper researchers and consigned to the dustbin of genealogy. However, the Internet is such a vast and rapidly self-perpetuating world that I fear in the future such bogus pedigrees will simply not be spotted, and there will be too many of them to quash. I am moved to ask how many newcomers to genealogy have ever read a decent book on the subject, or actually been to a real record office and researched in real documents? Or do they take it all entirely from the Internet? May I make the very vital point that even if all the genealogical records in the entire world are eventually available on the Internet, there will ALWAYS be a need to check with the original sources? Why? Because virtually every time a record is copied and distributed, it is degraded a little in transcription. You simply cannot trust any work which somebody else has put out. You MUST always check yourself with the original sources. How many people, for instance, attempt to build a family tree entirely from the IGI - probably the most fundamental mistake of all. Yes, the Internet is a great and wonderful tool, but it is that only - a tool, no more. References and records you find on the Internet must be used as a guide to steer you towards further research in the REAL records. Remember this and you won't go far wrong. Discuss for homework tonight!!!!! Roy Stockdill Editor, The Journal of One-Name Studies The Stockdill Family History Society (Guild of One-Name Studies, FedFHS) STOCKDILL PREST YELLOW BOLTON WORSNOP GIBSON MIDGLEY BRACEWELL SHACKLETON BRADLEY MOODY in Yorkshire North & West Ridings MEAD YOUNG in Somerset, Wiltshire & Gloucestershire Web page of the Stockdill Family History Society:- http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/roystock ”Never ask a man if he comes from Yorkshire. If he does he will tell you. If he does not, why humiliate him?" - Canon Sydney Smith (scholar and humorist 1771-1845)