People in the Internet Generation have no context. I remember reading an observation once that the Internet is like taking the card catalogue and throwing it up in the air; the cards are spread anywhichway and all the information is there, but the odds of finding what you want (especially if you don’t KNOW what you want) are small. And stuff you pick up off the Internet is not in chronological order so you never get any idea how the history goes together.
As for family history being admissible in court (or in a speech) we have been working on our family history for five years or so, and I would not claim historical accuracy for any of the “stories” that were handed down in the family unless there were photos and documents to go with them. The best story of all is one we have never been able to verify and the uncle that told it is now Gone Home; it was about a ship called the Calumet Queen that sank in the Great Lakes with all hands on board — my uncle was engaged as a cook but was spared because he was in the drunk tank on shore when the ship sailed. We have never found any record that there was such a ship. Perhaps it is the Naval vessel Obama’s uncle sailed to Auschwitz to help the Reds liberate it.