Be nice to me and I will be nice to you

otherwise …….

Read The Very Last Part And You Will Understand.

Family Names I Am Researching And Will

Not Transfer Are—Coffey,Donelson,Strunk

Baltimore,Stephens,Daugherty, Childers,

And Donaldson.

I Add All Information On The Grave Marker Just Like It Is

Names, Dates And Yes Rank. Adding Rank Is Not

'Being Used For Anything' After

They Died. It Is Called Transcribing

What The Military Already Put There

'After They Died' . I Come From A

Military Family And Am Well Aware Of How They Do Things. If It Were Being Used' I might Agree. All Soldiers

Deserve Their Rank Be Included On Their Final Resting Place, The Military Thought So To Or They Would Not Have Put It There 'After They Died'

I Will Not Add Other Family Members Information, Spouses Not On The Stone,All Of Those Can Be Linked.

I Welcome Photos Of Obituaries,Marriages,Draft Cards And Burial Cards. Those Verify The Information. No Census Photos .

I do my best to make sure the information on each memorial is correct and I research as many as I can. Some will disagree with the information On them.

Bottom line I am the manager and I will research and decide what information is correct.

If there are two death locations on different records I will add one and make a note about the other. I will not add a note saying that the information on the stone is wrong. Not ever.

As to changing Names on the stone-I will change them from Ben to Benjamin,Joe to Joseph etc but I will NOT change any others different than they are on the stones. I Will Not Change Any Dates.

For Edits- I Ask That You Add Something To Verify The Edits You Want. I do Not Count Census Records To Verify Them , A Lot Of Times They Are Just Plain Wrong.Just Because Someone Is Listed

As 'Son Or Daughter' Does Not Mean They Are The Biological Children Of The Parents Listed.

'Official' Documents Are Not Always Right Because Information May Have Been Given By A Neighbor Etc, Some 'Official' Documents On My Own Family Are Wrong And I Know That Because I Was There.

If Requesting A Transfer Please State How You Are Related.

THIS IS WHY

Genealogists have a dangerous little habit. We find something printed on an official government form and immediately get more trusting.

Census record? Official.

Marriage license? Official.

Death certificate? Official.

Court record? Official.

Therefore true.

Oh, my sweet summer genealogist. People create government records. People misunderstand questions. People lie. People guess.

People don't know their mother's maiden name.

Doctors get parents' names wrong.

Undertakers misspell towns.

Census takers ask the neighbors.

Clerks mishear accents.

Families conceal pregnancies.

People reinvent themselves.

Men shave years off their ages.

Women sometimes add them.

People hide marriages.

People hide divorces.

People hide children.

People hide race.

People hide immigration status.

People hide astonishing amounts of information from government officials standing on their front porches.

And sometimes the person making the record simply writes down the wrong thing.

Records are still worth everything to us. We just have to handle them as evidence. Elizabeth Shown Mills has spent a career teaching genealogists to evaluate evidence instead of worshiping documents. One record makes a claim. Another makes a different claim. Neither of them are automatically right.

We ask who supplied the information.

When? How would they know? What motive might they have had What other evidence agrees?

That habit is useful far beyond genealogy.

Official information can be wrong. Unofficial information can be right.

Evidence is how you tell the difference.