1970 -1990s Family History Publications

There is a large number of older generations who still use the early publications of the researchers from 1970-1990s that were self published.  That's fine for a base to start. However, what we have found that because these researchers did not have easy access to all the files available to them, their research was often flawed. In cases where there were five or six John Smith's in the same area, it was easy to miss a distinction between John and John Jr, or Cousin John or in some cases John who was of a totally different family. 

One major issue is that many of these self published books were not sourced. They may give a brief description of what they found, but 9 out of 10 times, they did not give a complete source report. Repeating the research in the modern time period we are in, is nearly impossible. 

Another issue is that because of the scarcity of the documents at the time, some things were missed, never seen or showed that they were on the wrong path and disregarded as being someone else.  Many of the books are now totally wrong with incorrect or incomplete information.  

I want to caution anyone reading to look at these self published books from the time period as a stepping stone but not a valid source. 

While I'm mentioning sources - I want to also caution those who swear by DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) applications. Not only were they often incorrect, wrong dates, wrong person used, incomplete, but there was a period of time where the DAR short forms application team was not diligent about confirming the information and there for the lineages will need to be proven before being readmitted. 

With that all said, if you find sourced information in these resources, and can find the actual documents spoken about, by all means use the document and original source instead of the lineage book and also, use the lineage book as a back up extra "by the way" kind of source.  But do not rely on it for your base information.  

Now get out there and Enjoy those Adventures in Genealogy.