Shame on Me!

Wouldn't you know it. I can't answer the most recent question from one of my fellow-researchers, on my source for an ancestor's birthdate, and it's my own fault.

Of course, I started doing genealogy B.C. (Before Computers--and if you prefer the "B.C.E." notation, I guess that would be Before Computer Equipment) and I assumed I would always have my paper files, including photocopies of my original source material. I went to libraries and courthouses, wrote letters, developed pictures, cut out obits, but always had some kind of paper. Who needed to cite sources if the sources were stapled to the Family Data Sheet?

Then, sometime in the early 1990s, back when I had a Mac, I started using some now-long-extinct software for genealogy work. It was not at all intuitive and really ended up just providing a typed version of the Family Data Sheets I already had. I printed them, clipped them to the handwritten versions, and quickly drop-kicked that software package into the trash. So again, why cite the sources?

But now, many years A.D. (After Digital), I use a PC laptop, Family Tree Maker 2006 (I'll probably discuss my feelings about FTM 2008 at some point), scanners, digital cameras, e-mail, and the internet to supplement my research arsenal.

Unfortunately, when I began using FTM (still in the early to mid '90s), I carried over my old mindset about citing sources. I'm not sure just how many versions I've upgraded through, but considering how many years it has been, we'll just leave it at MANY. I figure the Family Tree Maker people ought to know me by name. I'm pretty sure the first version I bought was by Banner Blue, although I think the first upgrade was by Broderbund, and I've upgraded regularly ever since. I'm clearly dating myself among genealogy circles, but then considering most genealogists' tendencies, it wouldn't take long for a good one to ferret out my age anyway.

Over the years, I gradually learned the importance of being able to know my sources without pulling out the original paper files, especially as I accumulated electronic files. FTM is great about linking Ancestry.com files and filling in the source info for me, but not from other on-line sources. I know it is important. Sometimes it's vital; for example, when trying to establish the relative credibility of two different dates... But somehow my software doesn't read my mind about new info I enter (or alternatively, reach out and smack me upside the head, forcing me to attribute my data to some source when I start to get lazy about it), and it doesn't have the automatic retroactive sourcing function that I would like. I wonder why that is?

So here I am, trying to remember whether my date for the birth of my great-great grandmother's sister came from an old letter listing material in a family Bible, a tombstone, a local newspaper article by a genealogy researcher, or from a list (of equally mysterious origins) from my Aunt Grace. I know the material was part of my early research, but any of those sources would date back to my efforts B.C., and would be in a box in my attic. Alas.