Guidelines we use in entering information into the database.

Although these are not the only guidelines we use when we enter data into the database, these are the guidelines relevant to most inquiries.

Non-members submitting information.  We have more information submitted than money to have it entered.  We give preference to entering information submitted by members of the Joseph Bucklin Society, because the $18 membership pays for 20 minutes of a skilled genealogist checking the information (see guidelines below) and the data entry. We are sorry that we don't have the money to give too many free rides to non-members.  We actually have piles of paper from past years, waiting to be entered, from non-members.  Work by trained persons requires payment to them.

(P.S. If you want to contribute to the effort of verification of data and data entry, and you are not yet a member of the society, you can become a member and join here.)

Sourced information. When information is submitted and has a verifiable source given for it (e.g., a book or a birth certificate, or a newspaper story) we enter the information into the database.

Sourced information differing from another source.  If two different submissions give different information (for example, each of two persons tell us  different birthdates for the same person), we research and find which is correct.  We then enter only the correct information.  If we cannot determine which is correct, we enter both, so that other researchers have clues where to start.

Non-sourced information.  To a historian, if no independent source is given for the information, the event never happened.  To them it is no good to say that Aunt Tillie wrote down information about people she never new personally.  Aunt Tillie may simply have engaged in wishful thinking or gotten things mixed up on what she heard form others, or been wrong because of two persons with the same name.

However, we recognize that family history sometimes may only be found in family documents or family oral history.  If information is submitted and does NOT have an independent source given for it, AND if we have no other information, AND it appears logical and reasonable in relation to known facts, then we will enter it, most often with a note where the information came to us.  The reason for doing so is that so other researchers may have a clue where to start.

Extent of non-Bucklin information in the database. To keep the database size manageable, normally (there are some exceptions based on special historical interests) we only enter persons named Bucklin (or variants of spelling) and the named Bucklin's:

• parents and grandparents (even if they are not named Bucklin),
• spouse, plus his/her parents  (even if they are not named Bucklin), and
• immediate children (even if they are not named Bucklin).

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