As a regular user, and a family historian, I would like to register not so much a complaint as a serious concern regarding the newsletters circulated to Scotlands People subscribers. There is rightly a good deal of confidence placed in the service that Scotlands People website delivers. It is generally very professional and reliable. However the newsletters often contain material which verge over the boundary between recording facts, and on the other hand providing interpretation of facts or selling a line without providing all the evidence available. I think they do this in order to be popular and raise enthusiasm which will provide greater sales., but it is a practice that can be very misleading to people who are beginners in family history or who have not experienced the many pitfalls. The fact that the newsletter comes under the aegis of Scotlands People can lead people to treat everything written in the newsletter - even the interpretation or derived material - with the same degree of confidence as they would the primary sources found in Scotlands People records. This is not an uncommon phenomenon among some librarians, registrars and record keepers. Since they work with facts and records people are inclined to believe everything they say about them as if they were 100% factual and verified. Yet I have heard them spout a lot of falsehood and personal opinion as if they were facts. So I would request greater care and discretion. Being partisan and partially right about a host of topics is not what people would expect professionally from Scotlands People or the GRO whose heritage it makes available. Mary McGonigal
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 10:57:19 +0000