Our goal is to show the kind of things you and your cousins may be doing that you would talk to them about over the picnic table at a reunion. The idea of a scrapbook containing a collection of newsclippings about family members to be displayed at Family Reunions and excerpts published in the newsletter came from the Hoelscher- Buxkemper Family Association of Texas. There are differences between this seminal work on the Ebersol family, published by Amos M. Ebersol in 1879, and the 1937 book published by his grandson, the Rev. E in 1937. The following are a dozen people whose family connections are different, depending on which published source is referenced. Starting next issue we will describe the differences of one such conflict in each Newsletter.
All dates are estimates.
Every text, how to book, or article, I have read, stresses the need for documenting sources of the data included in a genealogy. All of the major genealogical programs make provision for source citation. However it seems to me something is lacking. If the only purpose of the genealogy is for it to be read, then tradition , or good old fashioned yarn spinning with its traditional disregard for facts , is not only good enough, it is probably far more effective. On the other hand, if the purpose is to build a solid base upon which subsequent family historians can build, then source citation is a necessary but INsufficient requirement.