{"id":719,"date":"2011-10-22T16:10:54","date_gmt":"2011-10-22T23:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/?p=719"},"modified":"2011-10-22T16:10:54","modified_gmt":"2011-10-22T23:10:54","slug":"stupid-or-crooked-you-decide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/2011\/10\/22\/stupid-or-crooked-you-decide\/","title":{"rendered":"“Stupid or Crooked…” You decide."},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week I attended the lunch meeting of the Salt Lake Chapter, Association of Professional Genealogists.\u00a0 Although I was a founding member of APG,\u00a0 it has been a long time since I attended meetings. Very nice to renew friendships with the 12 professional genealogists\u00a0 (plus me) who were there.\u00a0 The discussion was the APG Code of Ethics<\/span>.\u00a0 And the lunch was delicious.<\/p>\n

Item one for discussion was the requirement to use undocumented family trees available on the internet as part of the final report to the client.\u00a0 And how to\u00a0protect oneself from being docked in pay for not using undocumented family trees from the internet. Many sites\u00a0preserve such genealogies, including Ancestry.com <\/strong><\/em>and FamilySearch.org.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em>The reason given by administrators of these sites for\u00a0accepting undocumented work\u00a0is that clues can be a beginning point\u00a0for Where to look?\u00a0\u00a0Who to look for? \u00a0How far back has the line been traced?<\/p>\n

For a long time, I tried to include these trees–although I work for myself, not a genealogy research firm.\u00a0 I even worked hard to document what appeared on the screen–in case the names, dates, places, relationships, and migration patterns were correct.\u00a0 Or, at least correct enough to serve as a beginning point.<\/p>\n

Time spent checking, correcting, documenting, too often took up all the paid time of the client, leaving little or no time to trace the right lineage or to document the client’s own\u00a0ancestors.<\/p>\n

You see, we live in an age where indexes to census records and marriages and biographies and wills are readily and easily available.\u00a0 If you want to spend your research time sitting at a computer keyboard, you can find persons of the right name, the right age, the right place of birth, the right place of residence, even the right names given originally for the parents and some siblings.<\/p>\n

Take the quest for Mary Ellen Keating born 22 Mar 1869 to William Patrick and Catherine Keating\/Katen\/Caton.\u00a0 Mary Ellen’s census records state she was born in Ohio<\/span> (family members\u00a0speculated Cincinnati) and Pennsylvania<\/span> (the family speculated\u00a0somewhere near Scranton).\u00a0 There are hundreds of Mary, Mary E., Mary J. Keatings in both places.\u00a0 Even a couple of Marys and a Mary E. with parents William and Catherine.\u00a0 Take your pick.\u00a0 Unless you want the right Mary Ellen as I do.<\/p>\n

Take the search for Ethel Conroy, left an orphan by the deaths of her parents.\u00a0 She had a sister named Claire, who according to family discussions, also died when she was a young child.\u00a0 I made a research trek\u00a0to Ethel’s reported town of residence.\u00a0 Found the father was killed in a railroad accident, leaving a widow and two small daughters.\u00a0 Claire was one of the daughters\u00a0 and she was buried as a young child in the cemetery next to her father.\u00a0 Although Ethel was not mentioned by name, could any story match more closely than this one, I said to myself?\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I got to the church to document the christenings of the two girls and the\u00a0burials of their parents,\u00a0I discovered that the Conroy buried in the cemetery did not have a wife named Margaret, nor a daughter named Ethel.\u00a0\u00a0His family members were named something else entirely–and the surviving daughter\u00a0was not sent to Ohio to be raised by relatives, she stayed there and was married from\u00a0that same\u00a0church.<\/p>\n

What’s more?\u00a0 Other persons were tracing these same people and their inquiries and family data were also preserved at the church.\u00a0 I left that town and retraced my research steps–at my own expense.\u00a0 Eventually found the right Ethel Conroy and documented her.<\/p>\n

I could give you chapter and verse from dozens of other examples where the information posted online is not the right family, although the details are tantalizingly close.\u00a0 My files include those undocumented lineages.\u00a0 They were not included in my report to my client.\u00a0 Why waste the client’s good\u00a0research money\u00a0describing what is wrong?<\/p>\n

Dock a genealogist’s pay because they do not\u00a0document online family trees\u00a0\u00a0Or, worse, dock their pay for not\u00a0mixing them into reporting correct research details?\u00a0 What thinking professional would do it more than once?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Three other potential violations of the Code of Ethics were also discussed in brief.\u00a0 #1 took up the bulk of the meeting.<\/p>\n

My attendance was well rewarded:\u00a0 a great lunch, good fellowship with genealogy friends, some insight into the state of professional genealogy, and much gratitude that I work for myself and for clients who want their own <\/em>ancestors–proven and documented from the records themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, having said all that, I use other people’s work to prevent duplicating good research.\u00a0 And to get the benefit of knowledge left behind by earlier generations, that may be lost from the memory of today’s family members.\u00a0 And to ensure that I track the right ancestor–it is so easy to follow the wrong lineage.\u00a0 I do the math.\u00a0 I check the printed version\u00a0against the original documents, where they still exist.\u00a0 And I keep in my files those family trees that do not fit, but where those families live in close proximity with those that do fit.\u00a0 And I take great pains to chart\u00a0the data as I go–so if I make a mistake, I can correct it before all of the client’s funds are used up.<\/p>\n

I invite my gentle readers to comment on these notes–otherwise I may have to stand alone against undocumented family trees.\u00a0 Your favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/arleneeakle.com<\/a><\/p>\n

PS\u00a0 Stay tuned for some key changes in my speaking schedule–giving many of you an opportunity to attend a workshop or conference near you where I will be speaking.<\/p>\n

PPS\u00a0 And Watch for\u00a0the announcement of\u00a0my new book and information catalog for 2012!\u00a0 Time I did a new catalog to entertain and instruct you (Oh, and give you a chance to increase your success rate.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I attended the lunch meeting of the Salt Lake Chapter, Association of Professional Genealogists.\u00a0 Although I was a founding member of APG,\u00a0 it has been a long time since I attended meetings. Very nice to renew friendships with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":720,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions\/720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arleneeakle.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}