Is this cheating?

[Lass]

I think perhaps the telling point here is that most of us enjoy the hunt - it doesn't matter to me that there's lots of work to do, it's the thrill of finding ancestors in the census or matching up relatives to the tree by some little quirk discovery.  If, in 100 years, my descendants question the validity of what's on my tree, then great - provided they have the hunger to work on it, then I'll be delighted to watch over them from wherever I end up!  But if I put as much verified information on the tree as possible now, then there will be less to question!

Lass x

[grandma]

Hi Lass.
I agree with you completely, the thrill of finding just one more name is rewarding. I tell all my family I,ve finally found so and  so... they just look at me!! Thank godness my one son i s also into geneology, though he is concentrating on his Norwegian roots.. He has a much easier job than me though. The church records are more or less complete.
Mary.

[RJ_Paton]

Should I exoect them to send copies of all living and dead??? Think this is just going a bit too far

I believe that the consensus is that all research should be properly sourced and that those sources should be properly recorded and documented to allow such checking as necessary to allow the validation and confirmation of the research.

I was recently allowed access to a tree of a possible 4th cousin several times removed. This tree was very interesting and claimed to have searched some of the lines (not my direct lineage) back to the 7th century in Scandinavia. As much as I would have loved to have been part of that tree I started spotting problems very quickly and further checking showed that the facts were being bent to fit the theories. Overall very poor research.

[daz 2008]

I believe that the consensus is that all research should be properly sourced and that those sources should be properly recorded and documented to allow such checking as necessary to allow the validation and confirmation of the research.

exactly , agree 100%
the amount of times ive seen people that have trees built just on names and dates is ridiculous.
its up to you whether you want to include other peoples trees but without sources you might as well just read read the phone book

[grandma]

In other words I should refuse to accept the info that my Aussie cousins send me as true, unless they send me cert. of all the family. Where I come from thats called nitpicking.
Mary.

[daz 2008]

In other words I should refuse to accept the info that my Aussie cousins send me as true, unless they send me cert. of all the family. Where I come from thats called nitpicking.
Mary.

no not at all , but they must have got the info from somewhere -if they are sharing their tree with you surely they would be happy to share their sources? if they cant tell you where they got they the info from then personally i wouldnt put it into my tree , but thats just me
its completely up to you

[grandma]

But when it,s their own children and grandchilrdren I must take it at face value. Some will say I,m too lax about this but I,m quite happy going on with it the way I am. I don,t have cert. for my siblings or their children either. Or my huge set of cousins on the praries. Have no plans on publishing this, it,s for my own satisfaction and as Lass said if in 100 years someone questions it all, well let them do the work. It,s a hobby for me, I try to do my best so can,t ask for anything more.
Mary

[daz 2008]

when its still living or recent relatives then of course accept their word , i would myself.
i didnt realise thats what you meant . i thought we was talking about going back generations

[Just Kia]

If living relatives are giving details of their current/immediate family then you have no reason to disbelieve.
The issue I believe most of us are concerned with is being able to doucment our research, that does not mean to produce a certificate for every birth, marriage or death, but to be able to validate our sources.
Knowing the names is one thing, being told they were born in 1828 is another step, finding the correct birth reference is yet another step, validating that Joe Bloggs from Yorkshire is indeed your direct ancestor on a given line is something, I at least, aim towards.

For each person doing research, they will have their own level that they want to achieve.
My personal aim is to be as documented as possible (depending on availability and funding) on my 4 (grandparents) lines. Once I feel I have achieved that for me the next step is to expand on the families of my ancestors siblings. This is only one way of looking at the research.

6 months ago if someone handed me a tree and said "here you go, here's your ancestors to xdate" I'd have been thrilled, now I'd be greatful but it would be merely a guide for me. If however I was handed a tree that had references (be that an index ref, or a parish and date, or census ref) I'd be greatful and I'd want to see each reference for myself before commiting it to my tree.

I struck lucky in two ways, my paternal line has been pretty easy to trace (I've 12 generations and all within about a 25 mile radius) and my paternal grandfather's brother researched the same line 20 or so years ago. I don't have his research, just the tree he wrote (beautifully so), but it did give me names and dates. I trust his research implicitly because I know it was done with accuracy and no costs barred. I've built on that and using his dates/places/names I have been able to pull up index references that match and order some of those certificates.

As I've been going through my tree recently some of my own work has come back to bite me. I've looked at a person and thought to myself "now, how did I get that date for their marriage? How did I know that? Where did I get that info?" and I've simply had to go back and do that bit of work again to make sure I was right and this time noting the sources/references. If I can't remember where I got some info from, I can't know if it is right or not, with the source I can check I didn't make a typo or something.

Don't be offended that people want to verify sources and wouldn't just accept details from another tree, it's just what has been learned (often the hard way).
Do what makes you happy, otherwise it's a chore instead of a hobby =)