I will help around these here parts. This site has holpen me find out a lot about my forebears, and for that I am thankful.

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These past four years doing genealogy have taught me that some other amateur genealogists use the practice to wax prideful. I am here to defend the truth no matter what, but especially if it is ugly and low, for that is how best to repudiate pride. Even one lie for the sake of pride could break a thousand threads in the tapestry of honest history. By analogy, one missed operation in engineering and manufacturing can lead to harm once the technology goes into use; whether it be a bridge or an airplane, the further back in the design and building that the error goes, the greater the harm onto the outcomes. According to Socrates, the beginnng of knowing lies in the admission of one's own lack of knowledge. However, God teaches better, demanding that we be slow to anger, quick to forgive. It's not primarily honesty that must be kept, but humbleness. It is humbleness that keeps oneself an honest actor, and humbleness that allows one to say, "I do not know." Christ's humbleness lets one say, "I forgive you, my enemy." So one preserves oneself, so that one may preserve the truth.

[note added on 3 Jan 2026]