Page 28 - Foy

WHERE’D YOU GET THAT ?

AGAIN, WHERE DOES A TREE BEGIN ?

A completed family tree looks similar to and grows like one of nature’s trees but
the two are assembled in opposite ways. Nature’s tree grows from the roots, to
the trunk, to the limbs, to the branches, to the twigs, to the leaves. Usually,
however, a family tree starts somewhere out on a limb, so to spea

k. That is, a researcher begins with himself, or some other member of his family,
and works backwards. He has no idea how many branches he will follow until
he reaches a limb, nor does he know how many limbs he will trace until he
reaches the trunk, or even if he will ever find the trunk. In other words, he does
not know where the tree begins. His goal is to find its beginning.

THOUSANDS SEARCH DAILY.

There are millions of records all over the world which have been and are being
searched daily by thousands of people eager to find out about their ancestors.
Many dedicated researchers have examined records and sorted information
about the myriad of FOYs who have lived in America. There are dozens of
excellent FOY researchers who have produced thousands of pages of data
regarding the FOYs and those of us who are interested in the history of the
FOYs owe a debt to those analyst. Much of the information in this book is
actually a compilation of other people’s work and as many as possible of those
researchers will be mentioned.

TROUBLESOME DATA AND GIANT LEAPS OF INFERENCE.

Every researcher, when searching for verifiable and factual information, has
learned there are some major problems to be faced regarding sources of
information. A careful researcher needs to question the integrity of some of the
information he runs across in his quest. Such is the case in some of the earliest

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