For those of you who have previously visited my blog you will notice I did away with bellblogger and decided to use my real name. It was a little strange, visiting other websites and reading some of the things I have written but not seeing my name attached. Yeah, I suppose my ego played a role in this, even though I have never considered myself to be one of those ego kind of guys. I try to be accurate and thorough in my final analysis and to see another name being given credit for my research, even a name of my invention, an alter ego so to speak troubled me. Weird huh?
There is so much out there that is not accurate and this troubles me as I have previously noted. It is distrubing to spend hours, days, weeks, months or even years sifting through records and documents to find a name or date and then go to someone's family tree and see misinformation. Who among us, who actually puts the time, energy and effort into genealogy wants to discover our ancestor with a wife or husband they did not have? One of my family lines has a fella who, by most anyone's account, is the absolute most knowledgable person anywhere on this family. A few years ago, I came upon a sampling of his work and quickly realized he was mistaken in one of his lines, my line. I contacted him, not to correct him but to ask where he had found the information. He promised he would send me copies of the documents he had used, but the information never arrived nor did he answer my emails.
I truly want to be accurate. Finding factual, documented information is extremely difficult at times and at other times I honestly believe it is impossible. It took me more than thirty years to find my 4th great grandfather Bell, but I found him! Yes, that day I felt like I had won the lottery. Well maybe not one of those huge lotteries, but you know what I mean. A side note: I really would like to know how it feels to win one of those huge lotteries, so anyone with advice on winning, I'm listening.
One final thought to anyone who is just starting the journey of finding your ancestors. Document ALL of your information! Make notes where anything and everything you find comes from, talk to older relatives immediately and record or write ALL of their tales, stories and all they will tell you. Their information may be the most valuable of any information you find. I did not do this and regret it tremendously, but that is for another time.
Hope you enjoyed my words, please visit often and tell others! As always I encourage your comments good and bad. Next time I will actually include genealogical information!
T Bell
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