Whenever possible, get a copy of the original of the record. Transcribers make errors and indexes are only finding aids, not an end in and of themselves.
Actual complete copies may contain details that did not make the transcription or you may interpret something differently than the transcriber did. And one should never assume any transcription is complete. I assumed a book of Revolutionary War pension abstracts was complete and nearly missed a huge clue because of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment