Monday, October 18, 2010

Sourcing Your Info

Spent the weekend doing a whole lot of nothing - except I did manage to get quite a bit of researching in for a friend who was trying to find out the origins of her name.  There's something satisfying about taking a few bits of information and working with it until you can piece together a story!  I'm always amazed at the creative spellings that people used to change their surnames when they immigrated to the US and even more amazed to find that often that siblings used variations of that same surname so two brothers could have completely different spellings!

I will feature the surname I researched on the next Surname Saturday.  I haven't shared all the information with my friend first and so it's best to wait.  And of course I want to make sure everything is sourced correctly.  I made the mistake early on of not sourcing a lot of info even though I knew I should. I didn't think it was a big deal and I was so excited to find all the info I had that there was no way I could possibly forget where I found it and why I entered it.  Definitely NOT a smart thing to do - especially since I tell people all the time the importance of this step!!

I have spent the last year revisiting each piece of information I have now sourcing it which is not fun. But don't laugh - how many of you have done the same thing?  If you haven't then KUDOS - if you have, go back NOW and fix it. Trust me, you will be glad you did!

1 comments :

Kerri said...

I know exactly what you mean Nuccia.
There are many time I think about something I need to take care of or need to research. But because I'm not organized to write it down, I forget.
Not quite the same thing.. But close.