Genealogy Elitist...

Well, I think I fall under the category of genealogical elitist. Not that I think my ancestry makes me better than someone else, as I am just as flawed as every other human being, alive or dead, on this beautiful planet Earth. However, I think I am a research snob, an elitist who somehow believes that EVERYTHING should have documentation. And no, someone else's online family tree does not count as documentation. Show me a census record, a birth record, marriage record, a family bible, death record, even a letter or a diary entry, and I would be much more inclined to believe what I see. Yes, all of the above may have misspellings and can be attributed to the wrong "John Smith" but it's *something* besides other people's research.

It's funny to find my own research documenting someone else's family tree. Yay for them that they took what I put out there, but have they even questioned it? Have they thought, this came too easily, I should take a look at the sources. Rarely.

It makes me afraid to put anything out on the web or to share it online because my conjectures yesterday, may prove to be wrong tomorrow, and I don't want to have a whole group of people happening upon my work and believing it when if they looked harder, they might find it is not their family at all.

Anyway, so I have a subscription to ancestry for a year and I have to admit, it is over whelming. Some of their transcriptions for indexes are plain WRONG so I have to keep looking and there is so much information out there, that sifting through it hurts my eyes and my brain.

But that is the puzzle of genealogy, right? Keep looking, everywhere, figuring out misspellings and mis-transcriptions and wondering just where Great-Grandpa George was in 1910 and why I can't find him.
Yes, I cannot find my Great-Great-Grandparents George Washington Sullivan and Nancy Diana Hardt (Sullivan) and their brood of children in 1910. And it would be a nice find if I did, so I can figure out when some of their children were born/died while in childhood.

I can complain all I want about people not being as methodical and research oriented as I am, but I sure am grateful for the internet and the ability I have to connect with other genealogists, other family members, and to sift through records at home instead of huddling over microfilm at the library. I can strain my eyes from the comfort of my sofa and my laptop computer, in my pajamas. :)

It is my quest for genealogical perfection that makes me an elitist.

And there is nothing perfect about genealogy! :)

Dece