You may not want to hear this, but county histories aren't primary source material
We live in Baltimore, Maryland these days, but we are from Ohio, and my expertise is in Ohio. Since I am a former President of the local historical society, I still hear from folks back home when they have local history questions. Sometimes they like what I find, other times, they don't want to hear what I have to say. Take "Georgia" (not her real name) who wrote me the other day and asked me if I would review her application for First Families of Marion County, Ohio, before she mailed it in. I looked and then she and I had the talk about standards of proof needed to join an organization based on a tree. She did not want to hear what I had to say, but she needed to hear it so we could get her research back on track. First of all, the application needed a lot of work. Secondly, the reason why it needed work was that "Georgia" based all of her research using two types of "research", census records and the four and a half county histories wr...