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Archiver > NORFOLK > 1998-10 > 0907377927


From: Mark Howells <>
Subject: The quality of research online (was Re: About giving away your GEDCOM)
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1998 18:25:27 -0700


Hi June & all -

Let me clarify as June has tread her dainty feet across one of my
pet peeves. My concern was not with the quality of online research
(more on this peeve below). My concern was with giving your
research to anyone and thus losing control over it. I give the
results of my research to family members and fellow researchers
working on the same lines. I have some (perhaps false) confidence
in the discretion of how these people with whom I share will use
the information. I do not submit to World Family Tree, GenServ,
etc. as I have little confidence as to what purpose my information
will subsequently be put.

-------- Here Beginneth the Peeve ------------------

My standard reply to the concerns expressed about the quality of
online research is "Twas ever thus."

Go to your local library, pull out their copy of "Burke's Landed
Gentry" or "Decedents of Charlemagne" and have yourself a good
laugh regarding the quality of printed genealogical research. Go
to your local Family History Center and view what's previously been
submitted to Ancestral File on your family (if any). I believe
Cyndi's maternal grandmother is in the AF in 3 different places,
all with incorrect birthdates. All this was submitted BEFORE the
advent of personal computers, much less the Internet.

Here's a snippet of something I wrote on the future of Internet
genealogy for an upcoming issue of Heritage Quest magazine that
speaks to this point:

"The veracity of the information published on the Internet will
continue to be variable but Internet genealogists will recognize
and deal effectively with this variability.

Just like any other media, the genealogical information shared on
the Internet will only be as good as the research which backs it
up. In the future, we will continue to find published information
which is based on hearsay and poor research methods entirely
lacking in any source citations.

The relative newness of the Internet as an information medium has
cause the question of the reliability of Internet-based
genealogical information to be a common lament among pundits. As
the Internet becomes more widely entrenched in our everyday lives,
this issue will fade to the background and become a standard part
of the careful genealogist's inherent skepticism regarding
unsourced information. The reliability of the information
presented on the Internet won't change, but Internet genealogists
will approach using such information with the same source
requirements which we now expect of printed or microformed
materials. Just as today we laugh at the more improbable pedigrees
found in 'Burke's Peerage', the genealogist of the future will know
to accept unsourced pedigrees from the Internet with several grains
of salt."

-------- Thus Endeth the Peeve ----------------------

Sorry to have gone on at length about this and thanks very much for
your nice comments about the timbre of the discussions on this
mailing list.

Cheers - Mark

At 10:32 AM 10/3/98 +1000, June Penny wrote:
>Mark n' All
>Thank you Mark for your warning
>I too have great concerns on the quality of research being
conducted via the
>net systems - and the subsequent use made of material downloaded.
I would

>hope this forum maintains the standards genealogists/family
historians have
>worked so very hard to establish and the resulting higher profile
now being
>enjoyed throughout the world and that we do not slip into slip shod
>methodology - as a new member to the link I have been very
impressed with
>the shared assistance/information and sources being quoted.
>June Penny
<snip>
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