Talk:Surry County, North Carolina

Providing information about specific local families in the "Brief History" section would seem like a nice idea. This material, as presented here, is problematic, however, in that broad, sweeping statements are made about the origins of certain families without documentation and without room for discussion. Pedigrees need, of course, to be constructed using documentation, and then they need to be open to criticism for others. The format does not allow that. This hardly seems the place to present statements as to the origins of specific families as incontrovertible fact. User:Melungeon


 * The statement does not belong there and had been removed. This wiki is designed to be neutral. The rest of information is based on the facts - that is the occurances and arrivals of surnames and settlers. Nothing more. Dsammy 15:46, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

It is precisely because the wiki is designed to be neutral that the inclusion of such "facts" in the introductory section of the Surry County page is extremely inappropriate. Such "facts" should be subject to debate and discussion, as should any genealogical pedigree. To say that these are facts are to say that someone's assessment of someone's research is perfect and could not possibly contain errors.

You have, for example, presented the ancestry of one of these families as though it's absolutely proven back to the 1630s - as though that is a "fact" with which no one could possibly take issue. Yet you say "This wiki is designed to be neutral"? Frankly, that makes no sense.

If each county's page should contain pronouncements about the ancestry of particular families presented under the assumption that these are "facts," that this defeats the entire purpose of a wiki. In fact, it defeats the purpose of any form of collaborative research in genealogy.

What you are saying absolutely flies in the face of the purpose of this wiki. If you already have the "facts," then it doesn't need to be a wiki.


 * Clearly whoever put this information in knows these families from own county research far more than you think and felt safe to put them in there. Dsammy 20:18, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

You're missing the point. "Feeling safe" has nothing to do with it. This is a wiki. It's supposed to be neutral, as you said. It's supposed to proceed on the belief that any one individual's research conclusions may be wrong.