All my photographs are hereby released to the public domain. Copy them and use them as you will.

If you wish to provide additional information, please quote an original source. Unverified data taken from websites cannot be used.

I sometimes get resistance to my insisting on sources. One person remarked, "I don't know what the year of the source is. You can obviously tell that it wasn't made up. I've never had anyone on FAG tell me they want sources or want them in the format that a teacher would when writing a paper. If you don't want to make my changes, I can have FAG do it". Here is my response:

I've been doing genealogy, both personally and professionally for 51 years, and long ago learned how important it is to be able to verify information. Right now I can find several undocumented items of data concerning my own ancestry on the internet. Much of it would be extremely valuable to me if only I could verify that it is true. I know that some of it is false, and it is repeated and copied over and over, since that is so easy to do with the click of a mouse. Several of my ancestors have the wrong parents linked, and it is repeated sometimes a hundred times.

There are good reasons for using a standard format for documentation, and the best genealogical journals insist on it. Check a copy of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, for example. The reason the year of publication is important is that sometimes there are different editions, and one might have certain information which is not in another. I never thought that you made up anything. Family researchers are by nature very honest, but they are sometimes mistaken, and it is absolutely necessary to check their sources.

After spending countless hours photographing tombstones all over the western U. S. and then countless more hours creating memorials, I like to see evidence for any additions or corrections. You are welcome to send information if it is documented. Someday, if you stay with genealogy work, I think you will understand why it is important.

All my photographs are hereby released to the public domain. Copy them and use them as you will.

If you wish to provide additional information, please quote an original source. Unverified data taken from websites cannot be used.

I sometimes get resistance to my insisting on sources. One person remarked, "I don't know what the year of the source is. You can obviously tell that it wasn't made up. I've never had anyone on FAG tell me they want sources or want them in the format that a teacher would when writing a paper. If you don't want to make my changes, I can have FAG do it". Here is my response:

I've been doing genealogy, both personally and professionally for 51 years, and long ago learned how important it is to be able to verify information. Right now I can find several undocumented items of data concerning my own ancestry on the internet. Much of it would be extremely valuable to me if only I could verify that it is true. I know that some of it is false, and it is repeated and copied over and over, since that is so easy to do with the click of a mouse. Several of my ancestors have the wrong parents linked, and it is repeated sometimes a hundred times.

There are good reasons for using a standard format for documentation, and the best genealogical journals insist on it. Check a copy of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, for example. The reason the year of publication is important is that sometimes there are different editions, and one might have certain information which is not in another. I never thought that you made up anything. Family researchers are by nature very honest, but they are sometimes mistaken, and it is absolutely necessary to check their sources.

After spending countless hours photographing tombstones all over the western U. S. and then countless more hours creating memorials, I like to see evidence for any additions or corrections. You are welcome to send information if it is documented. Someday, if you stay with genealogy work, I think you will understand why it is important.