Creditability of Source

Question

This is a new source added to Ancestry.com, a family member reached out to me asking if I had use this text as a source, I have not, wanted to see if anyone here has used it, and if it is a reliable source? At first glance I have concerns

John Matthews. Matthews' American Armory  and Blue Book. New York, NY, USA: Crest Publishing Company, Inc., 1907.

Comments

"Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you read."  attributed to E.A.Poe and Ben Franklin, among others.

I think the point is, be skeptical of all resources, and I am.  If I use information from a source, I acknowledge that in the == Sources == section, but don't accept or discount an entire resource based on creditability or accuracy. Even if there are errors in a source, some of the information could still be correct.  I always look for additional sources to support or disprove the other sources.  

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Kitty, agree with you 100%; however, this book has no sources for any of the information given.

Answer 1

After opening the link and looking at the book I would not consider this a reliable source. There are a lot of dates and places of birth, dates of marriages, colleges/Universities attended, club memberships, etc. but there are no sources listed as to where the information came from, i.e., birth or christening records, marriage records, etc. or the name of an individual who provided the information and their relationship to the person listed.  This type of book is best used for obtaining clues for places to look for records on the individuals to document their family history.

Comments

This is what I thought. This is going to be a problem, I bet many amateur genealogists on Ancestry are going to take these "Arms" as fact.

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Carrie, Your correct, this unfortunately is exactly the kind of source many people who are inexperienced in genealogy research latch on to as proof.  

This book reminds me of the Who's Who books that are published today.  A company sends an individual a form telling you that you've been selected to be included in XYZ Who's Who book because of your contributions to the field you work in, your educational accomplishments, awards you've received, etc.  All the individual has to do to be included is fill out the form and send the cost of the book and the individual will be included in the upcoming edition.

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I know, I have been working on a family members research and tree on Ancestry, and over the last week have come to find that sources on their site are out of control, and members trees 90% of the time are wrong. I looked to see if there was a place to contact administrators about source credibility, but there is no one to contact about this issues. I only have my trees on there because of other family members only use Ancestry. This is why I love Wikitree, I know that information added to profiles are being monitored and members here actual care about getting the facts and history right.

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I concur with Carol Wilder, Carrie.

Answer 2

Although the first  mentioned is Theodore Roosevelt and the book appears to be part of his presidential museum, I would see anything in it as just a "research starting place".  I've found no reviews genealogically on its' accuracy, and what I've been able to see within the free copies in google books, shows no index to any sources.  None of the pages appear to show any footnote sources for the infos use either..   So when we find books like these, they are typically just used as a jumping off point.. Then if as you research the infos, you find its been found to be accurate in the book, it can always be listed as an "Additional Reference"  in the Sources section, and then I would ref. back to the actual source that verifies the particular spots in the book that were verifiable.. thru a Countrys Official office involving the families involved and their possible coats of arms.

Comments

I opened the text through Haiti Trust, and not google, which shows all the pages, but it has very little information as to how and why the author connects the person (family) to the arms they do. This is why Americans should not research European and English heraldry...LOL

I brought up the subject because Ancestry is now using it as a "source", and I wanted to see if other here had the same concerns I first had.