Getting Real about Those Derivatives

Oh, how we love records that are neatly typed and nicely indexed. Sure, we've heard all those admonitions about consulting original records rather than derivatives. But let's get real. When somebody lived in thirteen different counties in 5 different states, that's a lot of records to plow through. When the records have been "processed" and published, we're going to use those published versions, right?

Below, we have two images for a 1750 tithe roll from Lunenburg County, Virginia. One is the version most frequently consulted: Landon C. Bell's Sunlight on the Southside: Lists of Tithes; Lunenburg County, Virginia, 1748–1783 (1931; reprint, Baltimore: Clearfield Co., 1998). The other is a corresponding page from the original.

 

1750 Lunenburg tithe list by Bell1750 Lunenburg tithe list sample

How many significant differences have you spotted?

 


HOW TO CITE: Elizabeth Shown Mills, "Getting Real about Those Derivatives," blog post, QuickTips: The Blog @ Evidence Explained (https://www.evidenceexplained.com/quicktips/getting-real-about-those-derivatives.com : posted 22 June 2018).

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