Well said and I am of the same opinion. "Be happy with what you get for nothing and try to improve on it." Ross GH Cotton, Burlington ON CAN 905)639-2929 Genealogy of the COTTON surname is my Enigma. I haven't sent an attachment if the details are not mentioned above. Check out my Genealogy Web Page at www.skylinc.net/~rgcotton GOONS member responsible for tracking the family name COTTON, #1437 Coordinator for Cotton DNA testing Project, Worldwide ----- Original Message ----- From: Richard Rands To: PAF-5-USERS-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2005 11:59 AM Subject: Re: [PAF-5] PRF/was No Source Information given in IGI Hi folks, As the primary author of the book, Family History Documentation Guidelines, it is one of my main frustrations to encounter information that is undocumented and/or incorrect. I spend a lot of time trying to teach people to do good documentation. I bill myself as a documentation evangelist. So I think I can understand the feelings about bad information that has been expressed in this thread. However, it seems to me that we should consider the fact that if people did not make any information available until it is proven to be 100% correct, we probably would not have nearly as many clues, leads, places to start, or hunches to go on as we do by having the volumes of data available to us. We all know that even the most primary of sources can have hideous errors. My mother-in-law is listed as a male in the census record when she was an infant. I can go on and on about how normally good sources have been misinterpreted, so I find myself being much more cautious about criticizing information submitted by others. There was a time when I was not as conscientious about accuracy as I have become, and I appreciate the patience my mentors had with me. A good scientist continues his or her research to refine their understanding of their field, but they are not very popular if they criticize the work of those who came before them that laid the foundation of where they are now. Just my personal opinion. Richard Rands SV-CGG ==== PAF-5-USERS Mailing List ==== PAF-5-USERS Mailing List Search http://searches2.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl?list=PAF-5-USERS