Genealogy Disaster Plan

Brenda Merriman sent along a suggestion for a posting on protecting your genealogical assets. It's an article from broomfieldenterprise.com by Julie Miller, a certified genealogist, genealogy researcher, lecturer and writer.

Her first of five precautionary steps is "Cite each source precisely and accurately."

I've been trying the new UK SourceWriter templates for Legacy 7 in the hope that it might make this task easier. Comments from others on SourceWriter are mainly positive, but maybe I just don't get it. Seems to me for official sources (census, civil registration) that, if I can find the information I did without having that information, it shouldn't be much of a challenge for someone who has the information, but without a precise and accurate citation.

Given that time is money, or at least limited, is writing precise and accurate citations the best use of that time? Most family members won't care about citations -- they want the stories.

I'd argue that the better use of limited time is to present information in a format that's likely to be treasured by your family. That's a nicely presented book on archival quality stock -- no problems with technological change meaning its unreadable in a few years. It should contain images of unique documentation and photographs. Then ensure that enough copies are spread around to increase the chances of it being preserved.