Sunday, May 15, 2011

Why do you do genealogy?

If you don't keep track of where you found your genealogy evidence, you lose.

In the editors' introduction to the March 2011 issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Melinde Lutz Byrne and Thomas W. Jones fire a shot across the bow of those who say their genealogy is just a hobby, so they don't need to document anything:

"Beyond amusing themselves, how do genealogists succeed? . . . Genealogists who bypass documentation self-indulge and self-delude. They leave undependable work, requiring others to redo it to test its results. Their research might as well have been cast out like an old toy. That is not success."

Subscribe and read the whole thing.

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