Back in 2009, I was still deep in recovery mode, dealing with widowhood and aged parents. My father was in residential nursing care because his needs were greater than was able to meet at home. Dementia, his primary disability, did not make him a candidate for hospice. I was living with my mother who was then 95 and unable to live alone safely, and longing for even a brief trip off island to anywhere with a seasonal change that did not include another summer.
Back in 2009, I wasn't spending much time wading through complex sets of data or inteligently evaluating the clues they contained.
Back in 2009 I purchased two Scottish wills online -- one from 1705 and the other about 25 years later. Forwarded images to another family member and researcher who is an Edinburgh-trained attorney (Americn term) who routinely explains Scottish law to non-Scotttish legal folk.
He responded with a series of emails crammed full of significant information, much of which seems to have gone right over my head. Witness the fact that one of those emails included 3 maps. Maps from the same set in my previous post. Maps which I smugly assumed (in 2013) that none of my fellow Lind researchers had discovered.
Remember what they say about assumptions? ASSUME, making this: ASS-U-ME.
Here are my reminders to myself.
- If you have found it, especially online, it is likely that others have found it before you. Truly original genealogical work is really, really hard to do.
- Share your work, but be open to someone else's understanding and interpretation of the same facts. There will ALWAYS be someone who knows things about your family that you do not.
- Review your sources and research notes regularly. As your knowledge of and familiarity with a family or community grows, you will read the same information differently, interpret differently, gain new insight.
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