Hi Marie, I can relate very well to what you have written. I've spent a lot of time trying to come up with solutions that work for me.
On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 16:14:08 -0700, Marie Peer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Brian, > > Thank you, thank you for carefully considering how you source information. > Although I find family trees on the web helpful with clues sometimes, I > often ignore what I find. It will take me about as long to research wild > goose chases as it will to forge ahead with original research. > > One of the things that has been a concern for me is the Legacy training > video, Ultimate Guide to Entering Sources. The technical part is good but > Geoff is perfectly happy to enter information about birth dates and death > dates and locations that he found in a book, a municipality history book. > While using city or county histories is a good thing and should not be > ignored, why would one not enter the original source from which the > information came. Surely the History of Pomfret was not written in the > late 1600's or early 1700's directly from the occurrence of these events and > surely the author sourced the information within that book. I always wonder > just where did that information come from? Was it compiled into that book > from church birth and baptism records? Was it from a list compiled from > another list, compiled from another list? > > Brian, if you had no knowledge whatsoever of the information you are now > working on, and were to find the database you are not working on, would you > be satisfied with the source: > > "Information from "Shockey History and Genealogy" by Ralph N. and > Marie F. Shockey; page 573-576, reference number 7.3. " > Nope. I'm not satisfied with it as it is. There are a lot of errors that I've found. I've given it a low surety mark. I have tried to get a copy of this work, but so far have been unsuccessful, as it has been out of print for some time now. It was unfortunate that the people entering the data into the database did not maintain a 'source trail,' so I have no clues to where much of the information originally came from. > I believe that is the real question and will tell you if the sourcing you > are doing is adequate. Would you be able to verify the sources? Would you > then be able to safely add these people to your database with some decent > degree of certainty? Answering those questions will tell you if your > sourcing is adequate. > > Is that book readily available or have copies been placed in the Allen > County Public Library, the LDS Library at Salt Lake, The Newberry Library in > Chicago, in other major genealogical libraries, in local county libraries > where history took place for people, is it published on the web so that I > have some hope of reviewing the original sources myself? What year was it > published? Could that be included in the source you are using? > The publication data was not included in this data. I need to contact one of them to fill that in. I forgot that my source didn't include it. I was travelling for 2 1/2 years since I first began working on this data. I met this group at a family reunion when I was in Virginia. I had to check on some of this. I wasn't able to locate it in the Allen County Public Library nor The Newberry Library catalogs. I'm surprised at this. I have seen the book at various historical libraries. According to one online source - "Details of this family are available as the Shockey History and Genealogy compiled by Ralph N. and Marie F. Shockey and submitted to and microfilmed in 1983 by the Family History Library of Salt Lake City, Utah." There is much that I am dissatisfied with, but I also feel that it is an extremely valuable resource that has helped me and numerous others make connections. I've published it online with the hopes of being able to correct a lot of the mistakes. I state that there are a lot of errors and that most of the information has not been verified in a couple of different manners in my database and on the web to make sure people see it. I was asked to help work on this database, so it is a little different, but not that much. Cathy brings up a good suggestion in a following message on how to deal with sources from gedcoms. I'll have to give that some consideration. Unfortunately, I've already merged the data with mine. I tried working on it separately, but it became too cumbersome doing it that way. What I have ended up with is not what I would call a great piece of genealogy handiwork, but a compilation of a lot of people's data, with all sorts of degrees of accuracy. This was brought about by my not understanding what I was doing in the early stages of my search for knowledge about where I come from. I was very excited to find so much information about my ancestors that I just started adding everything that I could find, without understanding what was proper way to go about it. I wasn't planning on becoming a genealogist. It is a dilemma for me. I would like to start over at some point, so that I will have an accurate listing of my family. I hope to be able to do this sometime in the near future. Right now, I am still faced with about 500 emails concerning this database that I have not answered yet, due to being on the road for such a long time and various other things that interferred, along with numerous other projects that I'm trying to catch up on and the need to make a living. It was a wonderful adventure though. :) Brian > It is so sad, so sad to find information but have no real clue about where > to go to verify the information. The next biggest pain is to enter the > source/s.. all sources, for every piece of information but it just seems to > me that it is useless to bother to enter anything at all if I do not enter > where I found the information and also the original source/s. It seems to > me that it is a travesty to have all of that work become next to useless, > which it is, without the trail of sources or, at the least, the original > source/s. > > This takes me HOURS to enter what I could enter in far less time, but when > I'm done, I know I've accomplished something that might be useful to others > and not just to me. > > Marie > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Brian > Schultz > Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 2:13 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Response to Brian Schultz > > On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 12:45:03 -0600, J. Hugh Sullivan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > >Brian Schultz said: > > > > >I have a similar situation with a very large database (26,000 +) that > > >I've imported, only using three sources, one of which is my own for > > >estimating the birth dates for people without them. The original > > >database put the source into notes, so I have to go to notes first, > > >copy the information and paste into the source citations. > > > > I respond: > > If I understand, you imported data from another person (or place) and you > > are using the sources as if you had looked them up yourself. If you got > the > > data from Joe Doaks OR if you got the data from Roots Web (just two > > examples) then either Joe Doaks or Roots Web is YOUR source. It is not > > proper to use the sources of another as if they were your own. > > > > Probably the best way to do this is: Source: Joe Doaks (Will Book 9 of > > Kumquat Co. PO, pages 46-48) or Source: Roots Web (Joe [EMAIL PROTECTED]) > > This gives proper credit to the researcher and reminds you of the place to > > look should you decide to confirm his research - in which case you would > > change your source to Will Book 9 of Kumquat Co, PO. Of course there are > > other methods. > > > > If I misunderstood what you were saying I apologize. > > > > I know several people who deliberately put misinformation in their posted > > data to identify people who steal their work. > > > > Hugh > > Hi Hugh, > > You raise some very valid points. The database that I'm working on, > which is now a part of my own as well, is the master database for one > line of mine. I agreed to help a group of cousins with this endeavor. > This database contained about 16,000 individuals when I received it. > > When I imported the gedcom I included a master source, listing the > gedcom as the source. Much of the data in that gedcom came from a book > written by a person in this group along with her now deceased husband. > > Most of the sources are listed in the notes, and fortunately, all are > done uniformly in a way that works well for what I am doing. > > "Information from "Shockey History and Genealogy" by Ralph N. and > Marie F. Shockey; page 573-576, reference number 7.3. " > > My process cuts this from the notes and places it into the comments of > the Gedcom source citation. > > I then copy the last line in the comments, which is spaced just right > so that it starts with "page 573...., and paste this into the source > detail line for the "Shockey History and Genealogy" source citation. > > In this source I've included in the comments "The information from > this book was supplied by the GEDCOM - Shockey Database source", > giving the original (to me) source the credit. > > On this same topic, when a gedcom is imported, it comes (hopefully) > with source citations. What do you do with these? These were > researched by others. > > I've been including "Researched by Brian Schultz" in comments of > sources that I have researched and do the same for others when they > supply me with information that includes sources. I feel that this may > be helpful for others that look at this data in the future. With some > gedcoms, I don't know who the original researcher was, and how to deal > with this. I been wanting to go through my master source list and deal > with this as best I can. > > I hope that I was clear enough on this. Comments are appreciated. > > Brian Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp To find past messages, please go to our searchable archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup%40mail.millenniacorp.com/ To unsubscribe please visit: http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp
