There are probably those who feel that I have made more than enough noise in opposition to the practice of accepting or perpetuating unfounded genealogical hearsay and legend without any effort to check sources or document the information. But then again some things cannot be said enough. The May/June 1995 issue of THE GENEALOGICAL HELPER carries a fine article entitled THINGS I LEARNED THE HARD WAY by Patricia Frazer. Every beginning and some seasoned) genealogist should read that article.

Most folks start their genealogy search knowing little about their ancestry. Maybe that same lack of knowledge is why they start to begin with. It won't be long however, before cousin Ernie or Aunt Betty will come forward to lead the genealogist astray with the old family legend. And it seems that every family had one.

"Grandma's mother was practically full blooded Cherokee from the mountains of Pennsylvania" Aunt Betty expounds proudly. Or maybe cousin Ernie says that "Our ancestors were originally French stone masons brought over" by George Washington to build the mansion at Monticello. There is no end to the stories. How many families have the old familiar tale of the three brothers from England, one of whom went south, one of whom went to Canada, and one of whom became the family ancestor? Yes, it seems every family had a legend, and more often than not these legends are WRONG.

Never mind that there actually were no Cherokees in Pennsylvania or that it was Jefferson and not Washington who built the mansion at Monticello. It won't matter to Aunt Betty or Cousin Ernie. Whenever the person who relates the family legend is told that more often than not these old family stories are not correct, they will answer that of course they know that, but they will offer that THEIR family story is among the few that are TRUE. And from this mindset comes a plethora of genealogical problems.

"The parentage of grandpa Jed is proven by the family history written back in 1889" some cousin states. It won't mean much when one points out that the family history offered no documentation, made not statement of where Jed's father's name come from, listed nothing to prove the lineage. It's written down so it must be true.

Ms Frazer's article has a moral: a moral regarding the punishments we can inflict upon ourselves when we accept unfounded and unproven hearsay as fact in our genealogical endeavors. The moral of the story is THINK, QUESTION, VERIFY! A good researcher does not accept anything without corresponding proof, and what constitutes proof is something that every genealogist should give some good, hard thought. Take another look at your materials. Are the connections all proven or does cousin Ernie's stone mason story cast a shadow of inaccuracy over all of the Limbs of the tree? No genealogy has ever suffered from too much verification