[or-roots] Matney

[Leslie Chapman]

James; 
she means the family tree information in the LDS archives. The policy with them as with all good genealogy is the same about "proof" but for something to go into their archive they do NOT require contributors to provide proof of their lineage or even to provide any source annotation as you will see in many of the trees that pop up on IGI in particular. When I was green at this game I combined two Melvin family files with my basic data thinking the FTM program would sort out any duplicate individuals. I still have buried deep in the branches and roots of my family file many spurious people that got into my file that way because it turns out that when merging a gedcom into your file FTM pretty much ignores any two people who are not character for character identical. Fortunately it is pretty good at questioning you if you try to enter the same person twice in your family file.
But yes as to the data bases the LDS has those are very good and the new search pages are even better as they are online. Unfortunately they recently tweaked their search engine and in my opinion made it a lot harder to use though it may be better at isolating what you want. I am a little mystified by the search engine as I can do a general search and turn up five John Does, but if I ask the search engine to give me only first name "John" Last name "Doe" exact spelling it will return no hits. That can be frustrating if a non specific search returns a thousand hits.
So as with any family data you get that has been generated by someone else; it is only as good as the sources it is generated from. I am a Bad BOY in that I often put people in my family file based solely on a census record or some other single source, but I try to always identify the fact if I am at all uncertain of the reliability of my information. My excuse is I simply don't have the resources to absolutely track down the "facts" on all these people, but in reality the truth is I am a "collector" after the big picture of how it all fits together in the broad spectrum and not overly concerned about absolutely nailing every person who goes into my family file beyond the shadow of a doubt. 
Part of the reason for that is that there are many people in my family tree that it is quite likely there simply is no way to "prove" certain facts for, like my great great grandfather Joel Melvin. We have a date of death for him, but it is based on a statement from one of his sons who may have manufactured the date out of whole cloth. No one has ever found any record or when and where he died but that which his son son stated. Best guess is he died somewhere in the wilderness between New York and Michigan about 1831.
Your folks might very well have done the same thing. There are a lot of people out there who have "disappeared" in the last twenty years for example. Once in a while one of them turns up, but if you think about it, a lot of them are still missing and may not even all have met their ends due to suspicious circumstances.
Les C

--- On Sat, 4/30/11, James <mygenrw2 at gmail.com> wrote:

From: James <mygenrw2 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [or-roots] Matney
To: "or-roots mail list" <or-roots at listsmart.osl.state.or.us>
Date: Saturday, April 30, 2011, 9:15 AM

Leaving the LDS out, would be like giving up.
 I dont know where you get they dont have documents, they have one of the largest microfilming units in the world.
  I see your name is related to the Greek.
I have a good friend who is a poulos.
Dan
----- Original Message ----- From: "Nancy Pazeotopoulos" <pazzy1 at comcast.net>
To: "'or-roots mail list'" <or-roots at listsmart.osl.state.or.us>
Sent: Saturday, April 30, 2011 8:02 AM
Subject: Re: [or-roots] Matney


> You really can't put trust in the LDS information.  They do not ask for any
> documentation of any kind.  Census, State records and newspapers are a
> treasure trove.
> np
> 

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