Cite Your Work!

Yea, yea, yea...I teach how to cite your sources all day long, but I have been caught not heeding my own advice! When I first started my genealogy hobby 13 years ago, I didn't bother citing where I got my information from because I never planned on publishing my findings and it was just "for fun!" Well, do I ever regret that decision! I still probably won't publish anything, but if only I knew where I got all of my information from so that I could verify it! I have met many distant relatives and shared information with many people and often I find discrepencies in our data. If only I knew exactly where I got that specific date in question (or city, or name, etc) then I could go back and check my work. Now I am in the process of citing all of the information that I have copies of, emails that I printed, books that I purchased, and it is painful, but productive!

I went to my friend, Georgia's, last Friday and got her started in Legacy Family Tree software and CLOOZ organizing software and yes, she is citing her sources because of my lessons learned! We will plan a trip to the Library of Congress library or the DAR library for my day off in September or October. That should be fun!

Still no headway on my "things to do list", but I am ever so hopeful....