This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: waroper Surnames: Roper Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.roper/1920/mb.ashx Message Board Post: ROPERs settled in North Carolina at a very early date and there is a great deal of extant information about various ROPER families well before the first Census enumeration. Even so, much of this information has been used in support of speculative, whimsical or simply fraudulent lineages, which have been repeatedly republished on the Internet, as well as printed out and furnished to libraries to confuse and befuddle serious researchers. Often, the very same record is used to support more than one construction of family history. With the beginning of almost universal enumeration in the Census, beginning in 1790, we begin to see decennial indications of the presence of ROPER families in various places. While others have collected and posted some of this information, these compilations are often riddled with errors and mostly devoid of any thoughtful or serious analysis. In several posts to follow, I will endeavor to catalog the ROPER households shown in North Carolina from 1790 to 1840 and shown how these ROPERs are related to one another and to the records found in preceding and subsequent Census enumerations. Some of the analysis will no doubt be contentious, since I show no deference whatsoever to the fraudulent ascriptions which have no come to be commonly accepted. Other researchers are encouraged to refute, contest or take issue with, correct, amplify, elaborate or otherwise discuss any of the analysis posted. But please take care to make reference to primary records rather than simply something you read on someone else's website or within some post fraudulent lineage. Simply repeating unsupported, invented and often discredited assertions simply distinguishes you as a gullible person prone to gossip rather than as a serious genealogist. This is not to dismiss the importance of "family lore," which can certainly be helpful. But there is a big difference between the family lore that Great Aunt Sue told us that her great-grandfather was so and so, as compared to little Bobby discovered that everyone is descended from the (purely fictional) John ROPER, Jr., of New Kent, VA, when little Bobby was doing an Internet project for his third grade class. While I think that it is nice that little Bobby has taken an interest in family history, I am generally disinterested in what he has learned from the ocean of specious information about the ROPER family now washing across the Internet. If you are posting to tell me that you learned something important about any of these ROPER families from the thoroughly discredited ROPER family history GEDCOM files of L. David ROPER, please don't bother. I already KNOW what is in these files and have frequently sought to help correct the erroneous information therein, but have mostly given up because this seems to be hopeless. New speculative, whimsical, fraudulent or otherwise useless information seems to find its way into these files (due to lack of quality control) far faster than anyone could possibly correct the specious information. Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board. <br>