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Myth #1: You can find your completed family history on the Internet. Well, you might find SOME of your family history on the internet, and you might even find a LOT of your family history on the internet, but believe me, what you are finding is only what someone else has posted there before you. If you have a strange name (like genzoli) there will be precious little information on line about your name. On the other hand if you have a name like James, (omg) good luck finding anything at all because of the zillion of people who also have that name, first and last, and all posted their info on line as well. The problem here is that the info that is on line is from someone else. Do you know them? Do you know what type of genealogy they practice? Where did they get their information? Is it documented? What are the documents? Who has the documents? Can you get access to them as well. Another problem also with this myth is it tells you that there are boundaries to your research. ALL of your family history is on line? well, how much is THAT???? Every time you find an ancestor you create two more people to hunt for. So how is it possible your family history is "done" Myth #2: Everything you find on the Internet is accurate and reliable. Hold me down while I pass out from laughing. Who ever puts the information on the internet is the person who you are depending on to get things correct. Every one makes errors in their data entry, but also people have different standards on what they feel is accurate information to be passing along. Information with several sources can usually be considered a fact, and can be published as such, but when someone else is doing the publishing you are taking their word for it that they can back up what they are printing. An example of this is my James family who always said that our family was related to Jesse James the outlaw. Mom said it, granny said it, HER daddy said it, and HIS family all said it. Was that a fact? NOPE. After doing a lot of research I find that IF we have a relationship with Jesse James it is more than four generations back from Jesse himself. I have several cousins who still claim that our common great grandfather was first cousin to Jesse. What proof do they have? not much. A common ancestor who MAY have been married to a Mary or Polly Poor or a Mary or Polly Rooker/Booker. They took this as fact and made a total connection to Jesse. More internet MYTH information. Myth #3: You can find your completed family history in the files at the LDS Family History Centers (aka, the Mormon Church). Same as above and only if (a big if) someone has already submitted them, and they are only as correct as the person who has done the research. Contrary to popular belief, they do not approve only correct genealogy, they will take information from anyone with a disk. What they DO have is a code that will tell you how much information submitted by LDS members has been substantiated. Ask the local LDS family history center for more info on the code letters on each file submitted by members. Myth #4: You can learn all about your surname in mail-order books. These books are known to many people as lollipop books, or SUCKER books. Will they tell you about your family? Maybe if you only wnat to know the history of your surname. I have yet to see one of these books with more than basic general information. ALL of them are rip off's. They have lists of people with the same surname, you can find this from switchboard.com. They will tell you the history of your surname, what country it is from, famous people with the same surname, and a variety of other misc info about everyone but the person you are hunting down. Do yourself a favor and instead of spending the money on these books, go to the local LDS library and order a film or two or ten for the same price and get the info you need yourself. Myth #5: It MUST be true because Great Aunt Matilda told me so! Like you really believe Great Auntie Matilda? You KNOW the woman was a nut, but when she tells you something about the past, because she is old, she MUST know what she was talking about. Never forget that as a person ages, their memory goes as well, and while they may have a memory that is very good, time still distorts the facts, even for people with a perfect memory. By all means KEEP the story as part of your family folk lore. But also remember that oral history by itself can not be considered a source. If you have facts that back up the story great, its a source, but without the facts you just have a story. Here is a short example of what I am talking about. My Grandma always told me Grandpa's family was William Louder and Rachel Delahaunte. I never had the chance to talk to Grandpa, so couldn't verify who his parents were, and by chance there was some other things going on that didn't allow me to find these people by any means I tried. The entire story goes like this. William and Rachel married in San Francisco, they had three kids and in 1906 had my Grandfather. The earthquake struck, they moved back home with Williams mother and step father. When the job market opened back up again (they were in Vaudville) William and Rachel left Grandpa with Williams mother and went back to San Francisco. From this story it seems that they spent most of the time in San Francisco. This story made me believe that William and Rachel were here only a short time with his mother. I spent YEARS searching in San Francisco for these two ancestors. I checked death records, Census records, Vaudville records, everything I could think of. Finally, not even searching for them I decided to check the census record to find record of my Grandfather living with his grandparents, basiclly in my own back yard, and there on the census, I found Grandpa, living with his grandparents, and right next door, I found William Rachel, Alice, Willie Jr. and Earl. This was in the 1920 census LONG after they were suppose to have gone to San Francisco. Once I had that time frame established I checked out the local newspaper microfilm for that time frame and found that not only had they been here for some time, but they also were in Vaudville, a SMALL LOCAL TROOP doing acts on the weekend. Grandma knew what she knew but only third hand. She never had claimed to know more than the basics, and she also didn't try to pretend it was a fact. In that reguard I was lucky, but I still kick myself looking for Grandpa's family in San Francisco when they were here. Myth #6: Our name was changed at Ellis Island. Well, anything is possible, but as far as I know there were no official people standing at Ellis Island saying "you with the funny name you're in America now, no more of that, you are a Johnson now." Name changes by error are very common, but name changes by design are not nearly as common as all that. Some reasons an ancestor might want to change his name would be to fit in more with the new community, to avoid people who may be searching for them from "old country", to dissapear, to dis-associate themselves with a nationality/race sterotyping. Where a person may have had a spelling that was out of the norm, or where a person may have had an accent that didn't allow for the person writing down the information to do so accuratly, errors happened. This can lose a record forever if you don't know what you are looking for. My own grandpa Genzoli's information of entry to this country will never be found, I am almost possitive, not because of a name change but because of his language. He called himself Carolo Gent-soli and I have seen many people who first hear this name say J-e-n-t-s-o-l-l-i? Names change for many reasons, but not because someone at Ellis Island decided to change your family name. Myth #7: The courthouse burned and ALL the records were destroyed The answer to this is the courthouse may have burned but what happened to the newspapers, and the records sent to the state, and the cemetery records and the voter registration records, and the census records?????? So you have lost a single source of your records, big deal. You need to dig in harder and look more closely at what you do have. Even if the courthouse didn't burn down, there has to be a record of these people somewhere. After all isn't it mostly about the hunt?
How to be a Myth buster To make your research more successful, here are a few of the things you need to do. 1. Compare Data Gathered from Different Sources This way if/when you find errors you will be able to determine what the proper facts are. Believe it or not it is more than possible to find two people with the same name and birthdate! 2. Study the Original Version of Pertinent Books If what you are finding in the transcribed indexes are not concurrent with your expectations, perhaps you need to seek out the original book to see if there was an error in the transcription! Or maybe there is a preface to the book that will explain that the index only covers a certain time frame when new graves were added, and those added before or after are not included, or only inscriptions from the headstones were in the index.If your ancestor had an unmarked grave, it would explain his non-appearance in the index. Index's are often just that as well. It is an index of a larger volume of text. While it may give you the basic information there might also be more information listed in the book about the person whom you are trying to find information on. 3. Evaluate Data and Prepare Research Strategies You need to know how another person, even an author in print, came to the conclusions you find. If they were reached by sources, then what sources were used. Do you have different information than the material in print, is it possible your information or theirs is in error? or is it more likely there are two people with the same name? all questions you need to ask when you find family history on line. 4. Obtain a Copy of the Original Record Obtain a copy of the original record when ever possible. You will never know for a fact if the copy you are looking at is the accurate transcription or if someone has been forever missing the single letter/number that will allow you to open the doors to your history. 5. Build a Personal Library While the internet is a great resource, you still need to find original material and build up your own history library. A combination of technology is the only way to go. Paper and computer meeting in the middle with you between is the first class genealogist of tomorrow. 6. Guidelines For Publishing Web Pages On The Internet Recommended by the National Genealogical Society, May 2000 Appreciating that publishing information through Internet web sites and web pages shares many similarities with print publishing, considerate family historians— apply a single title to an entire web site, as they would to a book, placing it both in the "title" HTML tag that appears at the top of the web browser window for each web page to be viewed, and also in the body of the web document, on the opening home, title or index page. Explain the purposes and objectives of their web sites, placing the explanation near the top of the title page or including a link from that page to a special page about the reason for the site. Display a footer at the bottom of each web page which contains the web site title, page title, author's name, author's contact information, date of last revision and a copyright statement. provide complete contact information, including at a minimum a name and e-mail address, and preferably some means for long-term contact, like a postal address. Assist visitors by providing on each page navigational links that lead visitors to other important pages on the web site, or return them to the home page. Adhere to the NGS “Standards for Sharing Information with Others” regarding copyright, attribution, privacy, and the sharing of sensitive information. Include unambiguous source citations for the research data provided on the site, and if not complete descriptions, offering full citations upon request. Label photographic and scanned images within the graphic itself, with fuller explanation if required in text adjacent to the graphic. Identify transcribed, extracted or abstracted data as such, and provide appropriate source citations. Include identifying dates and locations when providing information about specific surnames or individuals. Respect the rights of others who do not wish information about themselves to be published, referenced or linked on a web site. Provide web site access to all potential visitors by avoiding enhanced technical capabilities that may not be available to all users, remembering that not all computers are created equal. Avoid using features that distract from the productive use of the web site, like ones that reduce legibility, strain the eyes, dazzle the vision, or otherwise detract from the visitor's ability to easily read, study, comprehend or print the online publication. Maintain their online publications at frequent intervals, changing the content to keep the information current, the links valid, and the web site in good working order. Preserve and archive for future researchers their online publications and communications that have lasting value, using both electronic and paper duplication. ©2000 by National Genealogical Society. Permission is granted to copy or publish this material provided it is reproduced in its entirety, including this notice. 7. Genealogical Standards and Guidelines
Standards For Sound Genealogical Research Remembering always that they are engaged in a quest for truth, family history researchers consistently— Record the source for each item of information they collect. Test every hypothesis or theory against credible evidence, and reject those that are not supported by the evidence. Seek original records, or reproduced images of them when there is reasonable assurance they have not been altered, as the basis for their research conclusions. Use compilations, communications and published works, whether paper or electronic, primarily for their value as guides to locating the original records. State something as a fact only when it is supported by convincing evidence, and identify the evidence when communicating the fact to others. Limit with words like "probable" or "possible" any statement that is based on less than convincing evidence, and state the reasons for concluding that it is probable or possible. Avoid misleading other researchers by either intentionally or carelessly distributing or publishing inaccurate information. State carefully and honestly the results of their own research, and acknowledge all use of other researchers’ work. Recognize the collegial nature of genealogical research by making their work available to others through publication, or by placing copies in appropriate libraries or repositories, and by welcoming critical comment. Consider with open minds new evidence or the comments of others on their work and the conclusions they have reached.
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