Sue, Primary sources should be the goal of all researchers in my mind. However secondary sources do have their place as a tool and a step towards the complete picture. I continually use secondary sources to point me to the primary source. Secondary sources are more likely to be indexed or provide some other means to quickly find what one may be looking for. Because of mistakes there is the possibility that something is missed, so they should not be used as "gospel". But I don't have any problem with properly noting what they are and listing them in the interim until the actual primary source can be viewed. My Privett line is a roadblock for me as I've not been able to find the parents of my gg grandfather. And from censuses I have three different states that he was born in. So I'm going through secondary sources looking for little leads. From many of those leads, I've exhausted rolls and rolls of primary sources to no avail. But without the secondary sources to point me at least to counties, I'd be throwing darts. One of my ambitions with Group 10 is to create a complete file of all branches with primary sources. I'm sure that there are a few researchers who have thoroughly gone through the process we just went through of pulling out, reviewing and discussing all available material to reach the same conclusions we have. The info I sent out to just the Group 10 researchers in Aug. had the same conclusions we've reached. But unfortunately at that time, most things were sourced as PP articles. Ideally, people can properly document and share these conclusions so the time can be more efficiently spent looking for yet to be discovered documents and focusing on unsolved mysteries rather than resolving the same mystery. So where shall we go next? Is there much on the birth date and location of Thomas (d 1701/02)? There seems to be thought that he was either born in VA or came from Ulverstone, Lancaster Co. England. The other option, which will probably have more info is one of the lines of Thomas's son. I'd propose Thomas at this time, just because he's the oldest. Steve P. "Sue H. Gill" wrote: > > > Don't be surprised to see other records written in different books from > old courthouses. I've seen duplicate material entered in books from > Henrico Co., VA. also. > > My own personal policy is that I do not use books as sources. I've seen > too many mistakes and omissions in them. Plus, we all make mistakes. > Authors are no exception. Going back to the original source is simply > the best thing to do every single time. I guess this belief is why I > felt so strongly that Carolyn should not be removed from the other > Pennington list. She was always trying to get people to document their > material. It's nice to see Group 10 discussing the things that we're > unsure about, or "how do we know.....?" Pooling resources is bound to > benefit everyone. > Sue