Genealogists, List Collectors, and Parasites

GENEALOGISTS, LIST COLLECTORS & PARASITES

With the growing popularity of the Internet, more and more people are taking up genealogy as a hobby. Many of them are sincere amateur genealogists diligently researching their family roots with all of the tools available to them, and the Internet is certainly one tool. However, increasingly there are two other groups of family hobbyists that ought to be distinguished from real genealogists.

The List Collectors
The largest of these groups is the List Collectors. These individuals haunt the US GenWeb county query pages and sites like GenForum, trading their lists of ancestors for other lists of ancestors. They ask no questions about the sources of the data and do not seem to care whether the data is correct or not. While they are happy to trade information with you, they rarely do their own research, or at least, rarely do any research apart from the Internet.

I have had an exchange with one such person over the past couple of years that is typical of the problem of List Collectors. Steve and I have been working on his family - the Rainwaters - for about three years now. Steve's grandfather did some research in the late 1960s, and our first task was to verify all of the work he had done. Among his papers were copies of the family Bible of Bartholomew Rainwater, listing the births of all the children, living and stillborn. I consider this an entirely accurate document - after all, Bartholomew was a school teacher, and based on the handwriting, did the recording himself.

I soon discovered that we had an advantage over the Rainwater researchers who only had the census for information on this family - because the 1850 census for the Old Harrison District of Pulaski Co., KY is surprisingly inaccurate. Half of the children who ought to be listed in Bartholomew's household are missing, and a number of children listed there don't belong.

Along comes Roy the List Collector. Noticing that I was interested in the Rainwater family, he helpfully sent me his list of Rainwater ancestors and descendants. It did not take me very long to discover a number of substantial mistakes, among them that his list of Bartholomew's children was drawn from the 1850 census. I sent him email detailing the corrections, and gave sources for each of them. For my trouble, I got a reply saying that he wasn't really interested in the Rainwater family - that he'd just collected this information along the way.

After a year or so, I got some more "helpful" information from Roy. I don't think he remembered having emailed me in the past, because he sent the same bogus information. Again, I returned a list of corrections and got the same response. Now I don't really mind the fact that Roy isn't interested in the Rainwaters. What I mind is that he sees no problem with distributing lists of information he knows to be incorrect.

The Parasites
The Parasites are a somewhat different problem. These individuals also haunt the query pages, but without the slightest idea what the query pages represent. Their messages imply a belief that this is some sort of service where unseen genealogists will research their family for free. They rarely provide enough information to even begin a search, and they are stingy with additional data that might make it possible to connect great-grandma to anything in your database. And if you do happen to get great-grandma hooked up to the right family, don't expect to get any information in return. The Parasites take information, but do not give.

I have had long exchanges with several such individuals, but my experience with a woman I'll call Terry is the most instructive. Terry was looking for information on her grandmother, a resident of Pulaski Co., KY and a Rainwater. In each exchange, I tried to suggest steps she might take to find more information - get a death certificate, ask the Pulaski County coordinator for a census lookup, try several query sites - but in each case Terry was unwilling to do anything for herself. She simply expected me to magically locate her lost relations. She would occasionally dribble out a little more information about her grandmother, and eventually I had enough clues to identify which family the woman belonged to. When I emailed her this information, I asked for some information in return on some of the other individuals she had mentioned. What I got was silence. Not even a thank you. I have learned since then that if you want information from a Parasite, you must get it before you turn over the data they are seeking.

Conclusion
If it's truely important to you to learn your family's history, then it should be important enough to do the job right. First, learn as much as you can from your living relatives. I've corresponded with several people who wanted to know about their ancestors, while they could tell me almost nothing about their own grandparents. Second, document your sources of information. This will help you sort out reliable data from family legend. Try to get several sources of information to confirm each point in your family tree. Share your information and documentary sources. Neither a list collector nor a parasite be.

The National Genealogical Society recommends these ten guidelines for sound family research:

Record the source for each item of information you collect.
Test every hypothesis or theory against credible evidence, and reject those that are not supported by the evidence.
Seek original records, or reproduced images of them when there is reasonable assurance they have not been altered, as the basis for your research conclusions.
Use compilations, communications and published works, whether paper or electronic, primarily for their value as guides to locating the original records.
State something as a fact only when it is supported by convincing evidence, and identify the evidence when communicating the fact to others.
Limit with words like 'probable' or 'possible' any statement that is based on less than convincing evidence, and state the reasons for concluding that it is probable or possible.
Avoid misleading other researchers by either intentionally or carelessly distributing or publishing inaccurate information.
State carefully and honestly the results of your own research, and acknowledge all use of other researchers' work.
Recognize the collegial nature of genealogical research by making your work available to others through publication, or by placing copies in appropriate libraries or repositories, and by welcoming critical comment.
Consider with open minds new evidence or the comments of others on your work and the conclusions you have reached.