An article written for the 21 February 2002 issue of the Vancouver Columbian
Do you remember the saying, "Consider the Source"? This was often said when someone told a tall tale and declared it was true. Most of us know someone who can stretch the truth about as thin as a piece of fine gauze. As long as we don't rely on what the tall-tale spinners say, we are fine.
A number of years ago, a man named Gustave Anjou prepared family histories for people who wanted to claim famous ancestors. He built entire genealogies out of imagination. The genealogies looked authentic, but they were not. The sad thing about them is that unsuspecting people, who did not know about Anjou's dishonesty, would copy his work.
There are thousands of family genealogies on the Internet. I even put a couple of mine on two of the websites. How does one know if a family genealogy is correct? If it looks neat and clean, if there are no spelling errors, if records are cited, it looks like it should be right.
I remember a woman who would pick up a genealogy book, open it up to a page that had one of her family names, and gleefully chortle, "Found another eight generations." I saw her do this at least a dozen times. I doubt if all those ancestors were her family, but it didn't matter to her. She incorporated them into her book. I know she shared her genealogy with relatives. I wonder if people are still passing her work around.
The careful researcher re-works everything in a genealogy that is given them. They check out every fact to make sure it is not spurious. They use the questions that Donn Devine asks in "Evidence Analysis" in Professional Genealogy. He tells us to ask if the information is from an informant who was in a position to know the facts, was the record made close to the time of the event, was the record made under oath, does the record show care in its creation and maintenance?
This analysis takes a lot of work, but it is better to do it. Otherwise, you end up with a whole bunch of people who are not your ancestors.
© 2000–2009
Connie Lenzen, CG