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From the writings of Jack Ulmer "This note is intended to address Ron Ulmer's concern that genealogy information, like other research information, can be contaminated over time, on the Internet. The problem is that this contamination can not be corrected, because the data moves from site to site and is copied and compiled with other data, beyond the originator's control. The contamination can occur in several ways; such as, typing errors, estimating birth dates from census records, miss-spellings, repeating errors made by others, etc., but the most troublesome error is failure to cite sources and to openly display discrepancies from different sources. Challenging the data is not always popular with dedicated researchers, but if we accept the challenge and respond to it, our research will benefit. I will start with what I think we know about the Ulmer lineage displayed in Ron's Ulmer Forum, and try to cite the sources. First starting with myself and going back to George Ulmer of 1789: My grand mother, Ella Gray Ulmer listed all of her husband, Joseph Ulmer's brother's and sister's and their parent's information and gave it to my sister, Carol Jean Ulmer, now Brown. Grandmother, Ella Gray Ulmer, also provided a lot of other information about other ancestors in the Gray, Snodgrass, Murphy, McCullough, Langley, and Matherly lines. My grand mother had several obituaries that provided more information. Mary Lou Ulmer Sharr Piearson, my first cousin, became interested in genealogy some time before I did, which was 1962. She probably started within 5 years of that time. Anyway, she, like myself later, got the information from my sister. Mary Lou and my mother, Eva Belle Seals Ulmer, later White, did a lot of leg work at the Nodaway County, MO courthouse. Mom shared the obituaries that my grandmother had collected over a 60 or 70 year period. Mom visited all the local cemeteries numerous times and got information from several relatives in the 1960s-1980s. Mom shared her information with Mary Lou and vice versa. Mom also exchanged information with another Eva Ulmer, who lived in Oregon, over a long period of time, The other Eva Ulmer's husband was descended from some of the Ulmer's who were early Idaho settlers, that had moved from Nodaway County, MO. Meanwhile Mary Lou researched the past issues of the Hopkins Missouri "Hopkins Journal" newspaper. Mary Lou joined several genealogy and historical societies, including the Scott Co., Indiana Historical Society. The obituaries of Thomas Ulmer and George McCullough Ulmer refer to them living in Clark County, Illinois and Scott County, Indiana. Mary Lou also did extensive research in the Census Records and various libraries, which validate the ancestry lineage back to Thomas Ulmer, George Ulmer's son. I need to check to be sure, but I think the obits. also validate that Thomas Ulmer is George Ulmer's son. Anyway, Mary Lou hired researchers in Scott County, Indiana and maybe elsewhere. Mary Lou shared her information with several other researchers, like Pat Mount and Joanne Eaton and myself, and vice versa. I started to build my data base using manual family group sheets, micro film census rolls, micro fiche and hand drawn family trees, etc. Later, in the early 1990s, I converted to using the computer. My mother continued to research another of George Ulmer's (1789) sons, Jacob Ulmer, and his line and compiled a great deal of this information that was also shared with various people. Some of this information made it into the Church of Latter Day Saints data bases in pre-computer days and even more was added after the advent of computers, and when the study of genealogy became a popular hobby, as a result of the book and movie "Roots". Mary Lou's newsletters, for example, are archived and possibly, assessable on line in the LDS data bases. I have copies of some, maybe most of them, that she sent me. More recently Ron Ulmer has done a great deal of work compiling all this information and other information that he has researched and has made it available on the Internet. Ron also has done a great job, with Joanne Eaton's help, of documenting their George McCullough Ulmer's son, Thomas Ulmer's lineage. Joanne, Ron, and Pat Mount have all added more information to the data base, due to their own research. I am summarizing all this, merely to address Ron's concern that once information becomes available on the Internet, it is not retrievable, and Internet researchers tend to believe it is validated with reliable source information. The bottom line, I think we have very reliable information back to George Ulmer, born in 1789. I know that various copies of this information on the Internet includes numerous errors, compared to the source information cited above. If one wanted to be very scientific with this research, he or she could spend a great deal of time resolving the various discrepancies in names and dates and in some cases, locations, but the various copies of Ulmer information, with the discrepancies, would still be available on the Internet, since there is no easy way to retrieve and correct them. Most of us want our direct lineage to be as correct as humanly possible, but we rapidly loose interest in depositing discrepancies in other branches of the family tree, and usually end up listing both pieces of information for deposition later. The point is that the data base up to this point is reasonably complete, but needs a lot more work to be exact. Listing discrepancies and sources is a good practice, in my view, because it aids future research." Jack Ulmer

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