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Subject: RE: [HWE] Historical Atlas/Gazetteer/Biographical Dictionary ofFrench Calvinism
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 13:52:30 -0800
Hello Marc,
I find the whole project of enormous interest and I am sure that many others would also confirm that they too are interested in the daily lives of our ancestors rather than simply compiling a list of names and dates and uploading their genealogy to the internet with 50,000 unproven relationships. If that is genealogy then it certainly is not how our family research folks see things.
In our LEROY family research, it is only our particular family and once passed 4th cousins we tend to add only if there is some historical interest and even then such information is in note form.
We have little or no interest nor contact with any of the other 5 original family from France carrying the name.
For the passed 35 or 40 years the emphasis has been on matching ancestors to points in history so that we as a family and for those in the future will have an understanding as to the life and times those ancestors lived.
And so as one or two members of our family are concentrating their efforts on the Reformation period with particular interest in the Huguenot time , they are extremely interested in the information that comes to them via this mailing list. My understanding of the list is to discuss and exchange ALL information relating to the Huguenots and Walloons of Europe and not just their genealogy ?
Andrea, our wonderful concierge (List Administrator), has always indicated that the list is for open and general discussion and information exchange, provided that it is to do with the Huguenots and / or Walloons.
I do not see that your proposal is by anyway being a "pest" and until Andrea advises otherwise it is far easier to respond via this mailing list to suggestions or information offered by all concerning your project.
As to copyright and commercialism of history, if one is prepared to do the research, with the aid of others, and then freely offer such for future descendants then it is just that, freely available. (UNIX user groups are a prime example, the BSD project and for that matter, the Wikipedia project)
Mind you, it is definitely against all known western culture laws to reproduce in tact work by others without permissions. As Tony Fuller has suggested, ask and in most situations you will receive, again with a proviso that acknowledgement for information that you personally have not researched. The generally accepted method is contacting the original author or now copyright holder and seek permission to quote part of their work, with appropriate citing.
I am already looking through our resources for suitable material to put forward to your project. Information regarding Huguenot army, skirmishes and indeed battles as well as some information on buildings, churches and chateau for various estates. Such information is to describe as best as we can ascertain, just what were the living conditions, structure of society and life style for those Huguenots that were from our family or extensions thereof.
Much of our work is compiled from a pargraph here and one there, revised in most cases, as new knowledge of the particular original research became available. Much of that new material is from our own family members personally interviewing locals in villages as well as spending countless hours pouring over government and library documents.
It would be a shame if we, as a group of subscribers to this mailing list, did not see that collaboration is often the way forward with genealogy, rather than some ego tripping "my list is longer than your list and my information is the only correct information"
In research of subjects less than current it becomes essential to be able to cite and in that if one is able to offer primary evidence, that then is taken as almost fact. Secondary evidence requires some indication of where or from whom the primary evidence is taken.
Huguenot history is just that. Many things happened and are recorded, it is a matter of distribution of that recorded history that becomes of great interest, or is it a matter of not ever being able to afford to access that history ?
My thoughts and they are of course open to any comments, via this list..if some write directly to me all I will do is cut and paste and re-route to this list for the benefit of all who wish to persue this topic in the list.
Kind Regards,
Peter Leroy
> Instead of junking up the discussion group, I'll write up a little "project
> description" this weekend and post it on one of the many sites that I pay
> for out of the goodness of my heart ;-> and then post a pointer to the list.
> People who want to play can contact me, and we'll take this discussion
> offline.
>
> Sorry for being such a pest.
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