Folks,
As an “outsider”, an interested one, but still not one of your family – I’m still having trouble piecing together the family tree from Lawson.
I understand that there are several Family Trees out there in the wild. I’ve found:
1 – The one on Crossroads that includes Lawson and even goes back to the newly identified parents of Lawson Lurandy HINSON and Josephine (Dody) HERRING.
2 – The one on Ancestry.com entitled “Lawson Hinson” and owned by “Paula15240″; is that you, Paula Johnson?
3,4,5 – Several other ones on Ancestry.com
I respectfully suggest that one of these be decided by your family to be the “standard” one. I don’t much care which one, but I’m forming the impression that Ancestry.com is easier to work with than Crossroads. But you all decide. It would also be better to have a single-point person (plus a backup) to make updates.
You have all been helpful to me when I’ve asked for information, but usually your answers relate to focused descriptions by name and relationship. People, such as I, who are trying to piece together a complete Family Tree, including dates, locations and proven sources, find it pretty hard to put together the large picture from lots of little pieces. While that is what Genealogy research is all about, once someone has done the work, it is convenient to have a way to communicate the whole picture.
Another point – both Ancestry.com and Crossroads are very conscientious of blocking out information about people who are living. Privacy is a good thing, but most of the people that I’ve “talked to” on Crossroads are blocked out – so it is very difficult to place the whole thing in perspective.
I suggest that the single-point Family tree person, who I mentioned above, also maintain a GEDCOM file, the same GEDCOM file that is used to transfer the family tree to Ancestry.com or Crossroads or whatever. The current GEDCOM file would contain information on all folks, not just the dead ones, and could be selectively distributed when appropriate.
Thanks for listening.
Jon
Jerry
