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I've been following your genealogy conversion with fascination.
My wife is the amateur genealogist in the family. She started doing this manually (a lot of hours at the Newberry Library in Chicago) thank heavens for technology.

One of the early faults I found in the research of others is not to record accurately sources: record, date, place, recorder.

She runs across this all the time. She refuses to connect trees or give up much of her own data. What she has found and is frustrated with is, too many people take everything as gospel. She says it's not possible that everyone everywhere is related to stan laurel. :)

She does not put anything into the tree until she has provable documentation. Tons of obituaries\ship manifests\bibles\bone yard\birth certs\baptism\divorce\medical records\photos...etc...

We physically need to work our way back east on her side of the family. We need to cross the Atlantic for my side and the rest of her side.
She found she has a direct connection to "Spencer", but can't tie it to a specific one. (If she's related to royalty, there'll be no livin with her). I can't wait for the roads trips.

[What she has found and is frustrated with is, too many people take everything as gospel.]

Our family tree goes back to the Revolutionary War. It was a pure line, no divorces, and the family only lived in two areas. When my sister checked the tree online, she discovered that someone had put their family in the spot where ours is supposed to be. LOL

***If she's related to royalty, there'll be no livin with her***

Genuflecting (sp?) becomes second nature. ;^)

***the Newberry Library in Chicago***

I think I might have donated a microfiche of my gleanings from the Guildhall Library in London; just a pot puree of things from old London parish records. Made maybe a dozen copies and donated them to libraries around the country... helped make the trip seem worthwhile.

It is good to see folk getting involved in genealogy; it is difficult work and requires patience and discipline, but today so much is available. stylin, just caution your wife that finding the data is only half of the job. If she cannot direct others to the same record, it is almost worthless. Speculation, where applied, must be identified as such.

Mairdie spoke of reading history in the records; in London, when you get to 1666, you encounter the devastation of the black death... small parishes suddenly with page after page of deaths... then the London fire! Your heart would break, reading of families being wiped out. It is hard to describe. Then too the civil war of Oliver Cromwell - 1640 to 1660? The beheading of Charles I.