I'll reply once to this threaad and jump back off, to keep it from becoming off topic entirely!
I will gladly correspond with any who want elaboration, but offline please, to keep it from being an uninteresting burden on all the others! (You'd be surprised how much anger the simple act of searching for your ancestors engenders in some others! I don't pretend to understand where this animosity comes from, but I can absolutely guarantee it does come up from time to time!) I have been a somewhat active genealogist for a lot of years, and I can tell you, there are a couple of cast-in-concrete RULES one must follow, or you're wasting your time! I wasted a lot of my time before I wised up, so I am only too familiar with the elements of the genealogist's creed... Unless and until you have access to public or governmental documents that support what you THINK your lineage is, you absolutely cannot trust what's in the family bible or rememberences of family members, or on records family members personally kept. Aunt Tillie's rememberences are nice starting points, but in and of itself, essentially worthless. In other words, not acceptable "proof" of anything. By public or governmental documents, I mean birth and death certificates, church or parish baptism and marriage records, tax rolls, stuff like that. Governmental records of service, court documents, all work. You can honestly 'list' the presumed or proposed lineage, but you must also put an asterisk (*) or other indicator, such s (@) or (%) by the data entry, which is accompanied by a footnote which says, "This I firmly believe to be accurate and true, but cannot yet prove it." This is _essential_. All honest genealogists must work this way, because truth be known, without an official document to support your 'knowledge' it's all guesswork or word-of-mouth evidence, and not rock-solid proof... I could go on and on, but will stop here. Those who want to know more, send a post to my email address, please. Keith Whaley [EMAIL PROTECTED] Bob Walkden wrote: > > Hi, > > > but of course the nice thing about genealogy is that you can choose the tributaries > > you wish to follow backwards, and overlook the ones that tweedle back to > > nothing > > rather like people who go through 'past life regression'. They all > seem to have been Cleopatra or Alexander the Great in their past > lives. Nobody seems to have been the village idiot hanged from a > gibbet for molesting children, or the clap-ridden dockside prostitute > used by all the sailors when the fleet was in... > > Here's how you can trace things back even further: > http://www.oxfordancestors.com/ > > --- > > Bob
