Primary source records are definitely the way to go - you can't rely on books written about the area or about family heritage because "remember they are written by people" and people tend to make errors at some point. I've found many written resources to be in error and if they list where they found their information which most don't. It is well worth it to find the original information and even then find something else to substantiate that. There almost always is some sort of paper trail... you just need to ask questions and look through a ton of microfilm sometimes to find the answers. Leslie Barker Thomas Fear less; hope more. Eat less; chew more. Talk less; say more. Hate less; love more, and all good thing will be yours. - Swedish Proverb - On Nov 10, 2010, at 11:03 PM, Pete Gonigam wrote: Stephe--Not your fault. If this branch were normal people the marriage record you found would have helped clear things up. It didn't. I rest my case. --------- ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Wood" <stephe.w300@gmail.com> > Boy, did I open a can of worms on this one!!!! > > Stephe > > On 11/10/10, Pete Gonigam <gonigam@hotmail.com> wrote: >> It's why I stopped working on this line 10 years ago and why I'm >> going >> after >> original records now. There's something desperately screwed up here. >> And I >> can't even blame it on half-fast Internet people. >> >> --pete >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Linda Schwenn" <schwel@comcast.net> >> To: <vannorman@rootsweb.com> >> Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2010 9:54 AM >> Subject: Re: [VANNORMAN] Double Van Arnam (etc.) family connection >> >> >>> FYI: >>> State of Illinois online marriage database: >>> >>> HUMPHREY, G H VANARMAN, MAUD >>> 1870-08-25 001/ FINK COOK >>> HUMPHREY, GRIFFITH H VANARMAN, LIZZIE MRS >>> 1870-08-21 A/ 101 4011 MC HENRY