[APG Public List] Citing Sources - Your Opinion

[Beth Gay]

On 6/28/2010 8:23 PM, Cindy Leigh wrote:
>
> Hello!
>
> I am a grad student doing an online genealogy research degree from the 
> University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, and my thesis is on the 
> practice of citing sources in the amateur genealogist population. 
> There has been much concern among professionals about the integrity of 
> family histories floating around the internet and the amount of 
> misinformation being shared due to lack of proper documentation of 
> sources.
>
> Your opinion/s on this subject would add tremendously to my research. 
> A few short questions:
>
>    1. Obviously, education is the key. Do you think professionals are
>       doing enough to help educate the general population about the
>       importance of citing sources? You need to define the difference
>       between a professional genealogist and an amateur genealogist. Beth
>
>    2. Do you think one solution would be to lobby the largest
>       subscription services, such as Ancestry.com, to provide more
>       up-front and visible prompts to add ANY kind of information as
>       to where the information as obtained – in their public family
>       trees? Ancestry already provides education for the general
>       public. Ancestry is a commercial enterprise and needs to attract
>       newbies in genealogy in order to be a commercial success. Beth
>
> 3. Can you refer me to others who may have an opinion on this subject? 
> There has been much debate on <www.werelate.org> on the subject of 
> undocumented data. This is a nonprofit site but one stills need 
> members.WeRelate now has a gedcom upload process that takes some time 
> and effort and merging of matching pages. Beth G.
>
>