If someone in your family tree is found in the NFFG online Family Files...

Welcome, cousin. The fact that you have arrived at this page, means that someone else has contributed the family records to which your family is linked. The contributor may be closely related to you. The process by which contributed records are found at this website, is a type of online microscope into the past. We call it 'genealogical forensics', though of course, it is much 'art' as well as 'science'. As each new member joins and contributes records, it becomes more science.

Please share with us, your knowledge of the family you are researching, either by joining NFFG as a member, or simply sending us by email, the corrections or small additions of which you are aware. Be sure to add the proofs which you have, for these updates. Please read on...

The family you have been viewing may or may not contain errors, OR it may contain very valuable information for your family research, depending on the degree of footnoting and recent research which you see in the file.

Suppose you find errors or omissions, or missing information. If there are imperfections, why should that be? Or, you may ask, why should there not be more active research on your family's records? This could be due to the ways in which NFFG accepts information from members and contributors. A member or contributor may have found a marriage in their key family ancestry, which involves someone of your family tree - and yet they may not have researched this information fully. NFFG cannot possibly research every link in every genealogy, which is submitted to us. We simply do not have the time or resources to do so. An NFFG member, through the cost of membership, has paid for the time for expensive genealogical research for one main line of ancestry, from the present member, back to a specified ancestor.

However, it is the policy of NFFG to retain & display online, all of the links of marriage and kinship, which are found in a member's contributed ancestry. This is done in the hopes that someone like yourself who is searching or Googling at random, will then find the connection, join NFFG, and provide the missing details, or at least, send NFFG the corrections, with proof(s).

It is possible for you to use NFFG to perfect your family research. By joining NFFG and contributing the records which you have, you will trigger a search of the NFFG archives, which are full of bits of family information, yet which may lack sufficient substantiation to be shown online. NFFG requires a member who has a family stake in the family line, to make the corrections & additions which may be needed to develop a specific family. You would also trigger a search of source records to verify & add to your family research.

If you have done much research, or even just a little research, you will already know about conflicts and dead ends, and about expensive memberships and other costs, which may or may not prove fruitful. Sometimes, you will pay a fee, and only then, be forced to realize that the only benefit of your payment, was to rule out the costly information as inappropriate, and just swallow the cost. Many family researchers pay hundreds or thousands of dollars on such research. Your membership with NFFG will unlock for you, without additional payment, access through us, to a host of paid sources, and access to the many archives and private resources we use, which are not available elsewhere.

How many years have you spent on your family research? No doubt, you have spent some time. No doubt, you will have already obtained much information from your family or through your personal research. Perhaps the time has come, to reach back further. Many family researchers have spent twenty years or more on their genealogy work. Several NFFG member-researchers have sadly passed away, with their work incomplete. The body of work which they were compiling for their children or grandchildren, must be passed forward in incomplete fashion.

Gain some time, perhaps some years, and work in a partnership with NFFG, to speed up and extend your family genealogy and history.

If you have found very valuable information, or some leads or ideas, for your family at the NFFG online family tree, then please do not just copy & paste it into your own notes. You know what this would amount to. Do the right thing. Gain entitlement to use the NFFG online family tree files, gain the necessary source and other records which you need, and join NFFG.

If you join NFFG and contribute your records, it will also be an altruistic gesture. You will help other contributors & members complete their own family research. That is what family based genealogy (Cluster Genealogy, DNA and Surname based genealogy) is all about. You will not only help that contributor, but you will add new surnames and valuable family links.

Thank you for listening to the thoughts of your NFFG cousins.