Perils of Online Genealogy

If you just started your family tree, you probably expected that the Internet would be a great source of information for you. That may be true - but only to a certain extent. The biggest problem you will face is that there are other people posting genealogy data online - and a lot of it is incorrect. You may initially be excited to find a record of your family that extends back to the time of Charlemagne, but you should be cautious (if not, very wary) of that kind of "jackpot" - especially early in your search. Real genealogy success will take years effort, including painstaking reading, multiple library visits, countless interviews with relatives and (most importantly) fact-checking. These efforts are part of the reward, too! The bottom line is that you should collect all the information you can from online searches but wait to accept it until you are able to find corroborating evidence in original sources. However, you should even be suspicious of the validity of those types of documents. In addition to family histories you find online with incorrect information, you may discover that digitized records or online databases also contain errors. Your virtual genealogy search should be treated like a crime scene: one piece of information isn't going to "break the case," but several pieces build a better one. It may take a few years to feel truly confident about what you've found on the Web - you'll need to be patient. Rule of thumb: use the information you find on the Internet in your genealogy search - but use it wisely... Happy hunting!