I would like to add a few points. Most of the kind people who try to provide a free service for posting our genealogies do not have unlimited wealth (and most of us don't want to pay for it) and so they often sell ads on their site to corporations to help support them. This is true of RootsWeb.com which is sponsored by Ancestry.com. It does not mean that the corporation has the genealogy that is posted, though since anyone could download it, I suppose everyone could have it. There is one site I know of that will accept our genealogy postings and they do not sell ad space, it is www.familysearch.org On that site the database PRF is the one we can contribute to. It is done under the SHARE tab. Of course lazy people may not provide their sources here too. Yes this site is sponsored by the LDS Church, but they never ever sell genealogy for profit. Regarding the lack of citations, a citation is anything telling where you got it. Saying "Mom told me" is a citation but I suspect you mean much more than that. I would love to see references to primary source documentation. Yes, many people are lazy and don't put citations in their postings. It is a shame, BUT I would like to argue that it still provided a great service. I accept the wonderful gifts I find where people have posted part of my family on the Internet as a map or guide post. I don't accept it as fact, but it gives me something to use to know where to look. Often without it I would be at a brickwall. Bottom line for me, is that I hope people will continue to post their genealogies to the internet, and I hope people will not accept things on the internet as absolute fact. Alan > From: "MJ" <genehunter@verizon.net> > Date: 2005/07/29 Fri AM 04:33:38 EDT > To: PAF-5-USERS-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: [PAF-5] Lack of Internet citations > > > Fact is that most genealogy on the internet is not documented and is > therefore highly suspect. I have found many errors in the indexes provided > for a fee by the major services. I have made many errors transcribing > census records that I put up on my website. The difference is that I > correct my errors when I find them. Commercial services do not. A citation > guides researchers to the source so they can evaluate the evidence for > themselves. Perhaps we ought to emphasize that citations are essential, and > not limply accept what is offered for a fee. > > We should insist that any commercial service provide a scanned image of the > record that they have indexed. Census images are easy: NARA microfilms are > in wide circulation. Commercial services are charging for tertiary documents > and are not even providing images of those. I have several military records > obtained from a commercial service that are based on indexes of databases of > indexes of genealogical societies. Can you say error boys and girls? > > I will never again contribute my research to any on-line sharing site. I did > that once and several months later, my info has not appeared on the site. > It disappeared into the cybervoid of volunteer-managed internet sites. > > Judging from my Google searching, most of the sites calling for submissions > are filled with misleading links to commercial services. I think that if I > submit my research to these sites, I am handing my work to a corporation > that will make money with my free information that they conned out of me. > > I could rant on and on about free access to public records that the people > paid taxes to the government so that it would keep the records. Instead, I > will recommend personal contact researcher to researcher, outside of the > corporate-sponsored mailing lists. And INSIST on a citation. Anyone who > cannot provide a citation is not a researcher. > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.9.4/57 - Release Date: 7/22/2005 > > > > ==== PAF-5-USERS Mailing List ==== > AVG Anti-Virus Users > Disable the 'Certify outgoing messages' option via the E-mail Scanner tab. > >