olear15@attglobal.net wrote: > > List, > > Has anyone else noticed very blaring errors in this book? Were family > sketches provided by the family itself? > > I'm desc. of Eliza FULLER who m. Jeremiah HUNGERFORD. Child's Gazetteer > gives her desc. from Thomas > Noah. I believe it should be Zadock > > Noah. Her siblings are listed correctly but most with wrong spouses - > surely all couldn't have remarried. The only correct possibility is > Laura m. MURPHY. Of course there are errors in Child's, and in every "Glory Book" published in the 19th century and beyond. For Jefferson County, that includes Hough's (our Bible of county histories) Evarts, Oakes and all the rest. Yes, probably family members did supply bios, but not necessarily the family members who knew who married whom, or that Grampa came from the Mohawk Valley and not directly from Germany, or that Uncle Joe was far too young to be a Revolutionary Vet. That's why they are called glory books: the descendants wanted to shine in their ancestors' glory, and if the glory wasn't bright enough... The bios were supplied by people who PAID to get them included. The Child organization (and he had an organization) were book publishers, not genealogists, and they were interested in selling space in the book, not in what we, a century later, would think of their efforts. Having granted that, let's look at Child's as we do any other secondary source: clues to be checked out. When we have time to take a breath, we will print corrections, but we will NOT alter the text. That's unethical. If we say we are following Child's books, then we will follow them. I'm not getting involved in any family arguments over which was the real wife! You don't swallow everything in the IGI (I hope!) nor should you in ANY printed source, and you should look at least twice at primary sources. Genealogists make speeches on "When the sources are wrong". Take my birth certificate, for example: my surname and my father's first name are spelled incorrectly. Do I throw it away? Not if I want to get a passport! I suppose I could have the spellings corrected, but it's served me for 70 years, and I suppose it will last a few more. I know the difference, at any rate, and there was only one child born at that address that day! And as long as I'm lecturing from my stump, please don't take ANYTHING you find on the internet as gospel. We try to be as accurate as we can be, proofing and checking, but there's no way we can present as much as we do and check every reference. People who send in Jefferson County Pioneer material are responsible for the accuracy of that material, which is why their names and addresses are attached. If you have questions, question the person who sent it in. Often, especially to beginners, the county history is the only record they can find as to their lineage. With the clues they find there, they can unearth more information, not all agreeing with the county history. That's what a historian does: sift through conflicting data to find the truth. We hope. The vast majority of the information is accurate. You are invited to send in corrections. See the intro on the website. Nan Dixon, listmaster. -- http://www.rootsweb.com/~nyjeffer/