Is Accuracy Important?

When it comes to researching and finding your family what is important is that you know where you found your records.  That you document why you picked those people if it's unclear.  Accuracy is a variable.  Yes it's important to be accurate, to be as accurate as you can, but it's also important to remain motivated and to enjoy the thrill of the chase.

Accuracy costs money.  That's a fact!  You have to accept that some of your research will lead you to grey areas, where you're not entirely sure that what you've found is the RIGHT family.  But you should take a note of what you found, where you found it - why you think it fits and why you think there are doubts.  Leaving yourself with these "random notes" will enable you to pick up that thread easily at a future point if you gain access to new information.  New information is available all the time, with new indexes, original images of parish records and new published trees online.

For me, even Jane Finding is in my "grey area".  To get to Jane I've had to make a leap of belief and faith or two, based on what I've discovered so far in the last five years and what is likely.  It is by creating and further researching these grey areas that you can sometimes find the "truth" or more evidence.

You cannot follow a line straight up.  A person is part of a family - and those families that stay in the same area will provide clues as to where others might have gone to.  Only by knowing where everybody went to, who they married, what jobs they did, can you more easily make the essential connections you need.

e.g. if your ancestors were ALL Agricultural Labourers, but you find one female who struck lucky and married well and moved to her husband's town, you might then discover she's taken in a nephew 20 years later who is apprenticed into her husband's business and the census has been mis-transcribed, but you (as it's your family) can spot that he's the lad who 'disappeared' from the family home - that's a golden moment!

Personally, I find this sideways research very rewarding.  Additionally, sideways research leads you to the websites of connected families that make things make sense.

Where was my GG-grandmother in the 1901 Census?  Apparently in a village she is not connected to and working as a housekeeper!  Seems unlikely, except by following the whole family you realise that she's moved in with her uncle (father's, sister's widow) after his wife died.  He was in his 90s at the time.  So she didn't move to a random village to suddenly become a housekeeper, this will have been done because the families were all in touch and the old fella needed looking after and my GG-grandmother needed a roof over her head (aged 60 herself).  Googling the name of the head of household she was living with yielded a whole website dedicated to the family history of that connected family.  That makes for an interesting link and maybe their paths crossed at other times too.

Record keeping is the cornerstone to accuracy. You need to keep good records so you can return to check your sources, or for updates.  If you don't know where you got information from, it's pretty shaky.