BUTLER-L Archives
Archiver > BUTLER > 1999-12 > 0944620369
From: <>
Subject: Re: [BUTLER-L] Halbert's Book
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1999 21:32:49 EST
In a message dated 12/7/99 9:23:34 PM Eastern Standard Time,
writes:
<< My intention to do free
look-ups was only to hopefully give someone some leads. I have only been
doing genealogy since this summer but am under the understanding that a
person needs documents with seals or signatures to prove their heritage. I
wouldn't use the book as a documnented source either.
>Laura, >>
Laura - your intentions were admirable and I thank you for them.
Documentation comes in all sorts of forms, but for most of your past you will
not find things with seals and signatures.
Documentation/proof/evidence can be from any reliable and proven source. For
example, there are many volumes of vital records books published. These are
the only records we may ever find of the birth or marriage dates of ancestors
from the 1600's - but they sure work. Some families have a "name" and
someone has documented and written genealogies for those names. If it is
well done, with source citations, then it is good documentation, they have
done some work for you. But if there is no source documentation, telling you
exactly where THEY got the information, then it is only a good lead.
So if your Halbert's book tells you that those dates came from the vital
records books, and enough can be randomly verified to ascertain that they
were. Then it is a source. However, since it is hel in low esteem in the
genealogy community, I would quote the source as "the {city},{state} vital
records book as reported in Halbert's XXXXX" Since that is where you did get
the info from. But it tells folks what THEIR source was if they want to
check.
Does that make sense?
You are doing a good thing, the lookups are always valuable. I didn't mean
to imply they were not. Just wanted you to know about your source.
Take care
Jo Hogle
This thread: