But Roy - Has Great Britain ever had to decide between a nerd and a nincompoop? <g> Grit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roy Stockdill" <roystock@compuserve.com> To: <NEWGEN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, November 12, 2000 5:27 AM Subject: [NEWGEN] Estimating dates - BAD advice in FamilySearch! > Dr Bill wrote..... > > >>Roy, I do not claim to be as knowledgeable as you in the area of > genealogy > but I think you should "lighten up" <grin> > In my lexicon, the word estimate is to guess at a number which will narrow, > somewhat, the area in which you are looking. > vis-a-vis if I estimate that Joe was 25 at the time of his marriage to > Josie (18), I now can begin my search for documentation in a much narrower > time frame. If such documentation is not forthcoming, then I widen the > time frame perhaps 5 years at a time.<< > > I think perhaps you misunderstand me. I have no problem with the principle > of "educated guesses" as long as it is used strictly as a starting point in > a search - fine. What does concern me is that the LDS Church apparently > goes rather further than this and instructs members to use the "deduct 25 > or 21 years from a marriage to get the birth date" as part of its > ordinances programme. I have been told by others that ordinances cannot be > done unless there is a birth date (no doubt if there are any members of the > LDS Church on this list they will correct me if I am wrong) which surely > encourages submitting members to invent them. > > Hence, we have umpteen totally bogus "about" birth dates on the IGI which > are utterly misleading to those newcomers who have not learnt their way > around the system. I think there is a division, perhaps, between what the > LDS uses genealogy for and how we, non-members, view it. Let's remember > that the vast majority of visitors to the FamilySearch site will be non-LDS > and many will be newcomers who will follow faithfully the advice they find > there. > > >>I further recognize that the Brits are much further along in the science > of > Genealogy.....having not much else to do in the past thousand or so years<< > > What - apart from conquering a quarter of the world, fighting wars against > the French, Spanish, Dutch, Germans and sundry other nations, bringing > civilisation to the natives wherever we went and populating America, you > mean??? At least we know how to run an election that gets a result on the > same day and doesn't require an army of grossly over-paid lawyers to decide > it! <b.g.> > > 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 > Web page of the Guild of One-Name Studies:- http://www.one-name.org > "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) > > > ==== NEWGEN Mailing List ==== > ROOTSWEB..............R.I.P. >