If we yield to the temptation and hide records or situations that embarrass us, we may make it impossible for descendants to find the truth in later eras when different attitudes prevail. We know that . . . . In utter laziness, authors use this cliche to avoid having to document what they want to believe but have found no evidence for. The Smith family . Surely the author is not implying that all individuals of the surname Smith belong to a single family.
Records state that. . . .
The details make a tremendous difference. On the 1880 census, John said . . . . The data could have been provided by any household resident or even a neighbor. Introduce quotes properly. If someone s words are important enough to repeat them exactly, with quotation marks around them, then that somebody is important enough to be properly identified right there in the text.