I would like an opinion on the use of personal family trees as sources for a profile.

Question

I don't believe that personal family trees are appropriate source citations for WikiTree profiles.  Could I get a consensus of opinion?

Comments

Almost all - if not all - primary sourcing is hearsay. That includes birth and death certificates. No?  Then why is my brother’s name Stephan when my groggy mother clearly meant it to be Stephen?

In other words, I agree with those who say that it “depends.”  To me, far more important than any tree, any family Bible, any certificate or indexed record, is Case Building.  If a great case can be drawn from a source, whatever that source is, then ka-ching!  Success.  But if there are a dozen records all pointing in the wrong direction, and the genealogist doesn’t take the time to make his or her case, then a myth is created and perpetuated, maybe for all time

Answer 1

I don't think of them as "inappropriate" but, rather, "inadequate".  Sometimes you start out with them simply because they are all you have, but you should try to find records that support the facts you state to replace the family trees with.  They do make a good starting place to point you in the right direction to conduct your research.

Answer 2

I think they are a potential source for research purposes - I have found inaccuracies, but also new leads.

Answer 3

I would be more likely to trust grandma's hand-written tree from 1930 than an Ancestry tree on the internet. For the most part, most people know who their grandparents are, so a person's memory for a generation or two back is generally reliable (please note the emphasis on generally!). After that, the past becomes the land of fable. Some family histories turn out to be surprisingly correct even after being passed down by word of mouth for several generations, and others are total bupkiss.

Answer 4

I don't believe you'll find many, if even any, who would disagree with you. What's the true purpose of your question?

Answer 5

Depends.  I mean how was it made? Has a family Bible with all births recorded as they happened and that was passed down and so forth to where you have some solid foundation to five or so generations of folks you can then build on with other sources - you have to know the history of that particular tree