Perseverance and progress

A day spent online has produced results. Not a lot else has been done but I have discovered a great deal more than I could possibly have hoped. Sadly, not all records are free of charge but I managed to make considerable progress with the Williamses. Lessons have been learned, not least of which has been to make meticulous notes at the time. I thought I had noted some things but obviously had not. I thought I had added some information to the relevant record but it was not there. I am now wondering if I have been looking at an earlier version of a tree. Moving from one computer to another, backing up laptops, transferring data is rarely done with military precision and now I am paying the price. Some months ago I sat down with a fellow family historian and we cleansed the data for one branch of a family tree. It took a considerable amount of time but, at the time, felt entirely worthwhile and today, with the wonderful benefit of hindsight, I know that this is what must be done. I sometimes like to refer to a "work in progress" but if that means slipshod records then it is not worth the extra time it then takes to reassess and reassemble and wonder why it wasn't done right in the first place.