The last six weeks or so have been strange ones for me as it concerns my genealogy research/obsession. From these I have learned several things.

The RW mailing lists which I admin 40+ were out of service several times. Thankfully it was a fixable thing although it did leave me with free time that I wasn't used to having. I was able to use that time to catch up on a few things around the house and also in my research. From this I learned.

1. $hit happens.
2. When life gives you lemons make lemonade.

AOL announced that they will no longer be supporting newsgroups feed for their customers. A genealogy "columnist" took that statement and passed it on to her readers--unfortunately she thought that newsgroups were the same as Mailing lists...and (they are not--mailing lists are delivered to subscribers via email). It strikes me as ironic that a person who is so deep in genealogy AND considers herself a writer would not at least check her sources without first acting. This columnist even went so far as to write a four part series on her take of this "news". What's really sad is that there were some who believed her. When several persons contacted her about her error she refused to admit the error and has yet to pull the false information from her website(Feb 23rd). Journalists owe it to their readers to print a retraction when they make an error. Yet she buries her head in the sand and denies that she said what she said even though her statement is plastered all over the net(on her own sites and msg boards) is just (for lack of a better word) "stupid'.

1. Always check your sources.
2. Misinformation travels faster than truth.
3. To err is human....to refuse to admit that you made an error and denying yourself the wisdom of learning from that error takes a real "flake".
4. There is none so blind as (s)he who will not see.
5. Don't believe everything you read.