[or-roots] Uploads and Documentation of Files

[Leslie Chapman]

Cecil;

As I understand it part of the problem is that they aren't "cast in stone"
one of the ladies in our local gen society had submitted her family with
proper proof and documentation and then some distant cousin came along and
changed a lot of what she had submitted to reflect anecdotal family
histories that she had labored for years to prove or disprove and had
conclusively proven were not the facts, but the church in it's infinite
wisdom allowed him to amend her files and didn't even bother to tell her
about it, the first she knew about it was when some third party was selling
her information with the incorrect amendations to it and a fourth party took
her to task for doing "bad genealogy".

Are we confused yet?

The biggest problem is that they are indiscriminate in the online stuff as
to how it is done, anybody can submit a file to the web site in any
condition and they just post them, and then some poor amatuer comes along
and assumes they are gospel and puts them in their tree and furthers the
crime. I know Iwas guilty of that when I started out I stuck a couple of LDS
files into my family tree, they are still the root of my maternal
grandmother's line, but when I started proving things and discovered one of
the great grands who had only been married once in reality was married to
her twenty times in my file I smelled a rat. I do not merge files ever
again, and pretty much no longer use anything that doesn't have sources,
unless I have confirmed it seperately.

Of coures I know you are only "supposed" to use stuff you have two "proven"
original sources for, but I would have gotten bored and/or bankrupted at
about person number two hundred that way, but I have nearly 9000 folks in my
family tree, the core of which I am fairly confident of and which I know I
will not live long enough to prove even a tenth of let alone all of them. My
only regret is I probably never will ferret out all the bogus relatives I
have as a result of those first two files.

Les
-----Original Message-----
From:  Cecil Houk
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2004 3:59 PM
Subject: Re: [or-roots] Uploads and Documentation of Files


I agree with Gary that LDS files contain errors.  I forget the man's name,
but one of my 1850's ancestors married his mother on the day he was born...
according to LDS files.  :-)  It's too bad those files are etched in stone.

Cecil

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