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From: bennison@clt.DEC (Victor Bennison - DTN 381-2156)
Newsgroups: net.roots
Subject: Some notes on recent postings
Message-ID: <1631@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Dec-85 10:45:48 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.1631
Posted: Fri Dec  6 10:45:48 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Dec-85 05:54:11 EST
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Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
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Some notes on recent postings:

To Denise O'Jibway:
"Three Rivers" is almost certainly Trois Rivieres in Quebec Province
on the St. Lawrence River.  And by the way, if you ever get into the
Canadian research in earnest (have you already?) I would appreciate
a report on what useful tools are available, e.g., census indices,
surname indices, etc.  I have Canadian research to do also, but don't
know much about what's available.  I don't have the time to just
search unindexed census records, unless I know exactly where my people
were.  I'm particularly interested in Ontario.  I know a lot about
what's available in New Brunswick.  P.S.  just out of curiosity, what
is the origin of the name O'Jibway?

----

One common mistake made by novices to family research is to look for
other people with the same surname.  Even if you have one of the most
uncommon surnames, the probability of the person 1) being closely
related and 2) knowing anything about his ancestry are slim to none.
You are just as likely to be closely related to the person in the
office next to you, whatever his/her name is.  Most surnames had their
origins long long ago and there are zillions of branchs coming down to
the present.  It doesn't mean there are zillions of people with that
name, but that any two people with the same name are likely to be on
different branchs.  The process of researching your family can be
broken down into two major sub-tasks:

    	1).  Ask for information from everyone you KNOW you are
    	     related to.  a) ask them once.  b) ask them again.

    	2).  Roll up your sleaves and get down to the HARD work
    	     of searching records and piecing your way back, step
    	     by step.

Attempts to take short-cuts seldom pay off.  If there is a short-cut
that pays off sometimes, it is in searching published family histories.
But even this route seldom pays off unless you have already gotten
back well into the 1800's using 1) and 2) above.

----

    				Vick Bennison
    				...decvax!decwrl!rhea!tools!bennison
    				(603) 881-2156