My mother the...

My mother was many things. Today we're going to focus on my mother the genealogist since this is what the posts have been about for the last several months.

She taught me a lot about life. I didn't realize it, but she taught me a lot about genealogy.

Ask anyone who knew my mother, she was a great friend, but make no mistake about it, she was a formable enemy. But today is not about how she treated those who did her family wrong. Today is about how she treated the ancestors and others searching for their ancestors.

Mom believed in proof when it came to genealogy. She wasn't a certified genealogist, but she was a professional genealogist. She did work for others for pay. She published one family book, several local indexes, and had stories published in some local genealogical/historical books.

She walked, if not every cemetery, most of the cemeteries in at least three counties gathering information on those buried there. She sorted through marriage licenses on the local level in several counties so they could be indexed. She read through old newspapers and made a list of who was mentioned in each issue.

She devoted a lot of time, energy and money to obtain information for her family, my family and creating indexes so others would have an easier time finding information on their family.

My mother was very, very giving to those she knew and those she didn't know.

However, she learned a very valuable lesson. She published a story about my great, great grandfather and mother in a local historical collection. She stated as fact who his father was. She later learned she was wrong. That Reuben was not William's father. She spent the rest of her life providing information that proved she'd been wrong. To this day, there are still many who refuse to believe her new information. What information did she have to make that claim. Actually, none. What information did she locate? Marriage records, various censuses with a male child of my great, great grandfathers age during that time in the household of the married family.

She died knowing some were more willing to believe the undocumented information than accept the documented information. Why? I don't know.

But the fact is, forty years after the inaccurate published story, it still haunts our family. Eighteen years after the death of my mother there are those who refuse to believe her documents and rely only on her earlier unsourced, undocumented statement. It bothered her to the end. The fact that she published wrong information. The fact that no matter how much proof she shared with others that she had been wrong, they refused to budge.

It bothers me.

My mother was a professional genealogist. My mother was a giving genealogist. My mother learned a very hard lesson very early in her genealogy hobby and later genealogy profession, do NOT release unproven information.

So, if there is something that I'm not willing to share right now. A theory that I can't prove, please don't think I'm selfish or stuck up or whatever the other words that aren't fit for typing just because I'm working on something that I can't prove and won't share it until I can prove it.

My mother taught me a lot about genealogy, even though I didn't realize I was a willing student at the time she was talking to me about it.

When it comes to genealogy and a lot of things, I am my mother's daughter.

Accept my decision to adhere to not only my mother's lessons learned, but also my decision to adhere to the code set out by the Board for Certification for Genealogists. I am my mother's daughter.