I am one of those individuals that also did not record my early findings
in a meaningful manner, but as time goes by I correct my data and add it
to the pile. Unfortunately there are those that no matter what you do
they are unhappy.
I recently, in the past 3 months was able to connect two Cassidy groups
on this same board, neither of these individuals are related to my
Cassidy bunch, but had I not collected some not related and UNVERIFIED by
me data some 25 years ago and on a cold rainy night here in St. Louis
entered it into my data base, these two families may not have found each
other. Why, well one family currently spells their name Cassady while the
other uses Cassidy in his background. No I didn't have the source data
attached to all the records but the contact point was there. I'm happy
with that.
I belong to a PAF users group. The editor or the newsletter is always
dazzling us with his knowledge about the PAF and AQ programs, but when I
queried him relative to the merge capability and notes entries, he
admitted that he hadn't ever tried merging, it was too scarry. Some
expert, but every body bows to him.
I teach beginners Genealogy classes, mostly how to fill out a few forms
and start the research. I first try to interest the student to continue
the effort, not to scare them off with you must, you must, you must.
After all it's their family, who cares if their notes all contain
OCCUPATION:
EDUCATION:
and all the other highlighted gobbledegook., it's their family.
The above expert is a great proponent of the automatic Genbook, I tried
to ask him what happens to the personal comments, that is ignored. He is
quite proud of his 3 or 4 books. They all look alike to me, nothing is
personal. What a drag.
I encourage you to keep your family out there, he who pulls it in can
contact you individually. If it's not there you may never find that 6th
or 7th cousin who is just staring out.
Bill
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