Legacy Source from Familysearch

Question

Are these legitimate sources? This is what I have: "Legacy NFS Source : Mary Ann Marlow - Government Record: Birth Name: Mary Ann Marlow".

Here's my problem, I know that her father (my 3rd great grandfather) was called Marler, as were all the family who migrated to TN.

Is this something I can ignore, or do I need to take their word for it?

Answer 1

I have no idea what Legacy NFS source means, but based on the similarity of the names Marlow and Marler I would consider whether it could be the same person with a spelling variant and would take a closer look at it to see if it could lead to more clues about Mary Ann or a more rigorous source. Names often change spelling particularly when there is a move to a new location where pronunciations are slightly different and clerks may then write it differently.

Comments

i think Legacy NFS source is just a Tree source from Family search with no sources but I could be wrong - I would check that term at family search and see

Answer 2

Hi Lisa, I use Legacy as my rough tree before bringing any entries to Wikitree as it is offline software, however it does link and sink with Family search, Find my past, My heritage etc. for comparisons and hints when online.

It is like any family tree, unless you can see a legitemate source that can be confirmed, then I would say no! No source, Not reliable.

use it as a reference for further research.

Comments

Thank you all. Lynda, you mention the legitimacy issue -which is huge for all of us (I hope). It is the same person, and there are sources, but there have also been arguments on Familysearch with descendants who spell it differently.

I learned the hard way NOT to take people or their information from other's trees, as they are often nothing but copied from another tree (or trees) with no sources. I'm still cleaning up stuff on Ancestry that I did 10 years ago! MEH!.

Answer 3

'NFS' is New FamilySearch.  'Legacy NFS' is just a record from New FamilySearch that was brought over when New Family Search became defunct.  Nothing to do with 'Legacy' the software.

Answer 4

It is my understanding that any source starting with "Legacy NFS Source" is a byproduct of some FamilySearch reorganization in 2014. I wasn't using the site then so I'm not sure what happened.

Here's what I found while searching for it, especially bolded: 

"Legacy NFS sources are simply the text sources that were entered with an item that came across from NFS when FT was created. Just like any source attached to a person the validity of the information is left up to the viewer to decide. 

For these sources there would be no links to documents because at the time there was no way to do that. "

(comment from https://getsatisfaction.com/familysearch/topics/legacy_nfs_sources_appearing_when_i_requested_they_not_be_moved_over#reply_14681027)

So it's nothing to do with the Legacy Family Tree software.

I would treat it as a potential lead, perhaps Marler was mis-transcribed as Marlow somewhere/