Sometimes I feel like I sound like a broken record. From my 40+ years of research, when I tell clients, friends, family, the people in the classes I teach to go after the original record, it's from long experience. I had a good example of this the other day, when I was researching a client's birth family. On Ancestry, there is an entry in the California Birth Index, 1905-1995 for Walter L. Geldert, who was born in Los Angeles in 1922.
However, I was just not satisfied with this - as a genealogist, I always want more information. I wondered if FamilySearch would have a different record, and it took me all of 3 minutes to find it.
FamilySearch (familysearch.org/search/collection/2001287) > Los Angeles, Los Angeles > Birth certificates 1922 no 12000-14362 > image 1972 of 3069, birth certificate 13543 for Walter Lawrence Hathaway Geldert (1922).
This birth certificate tells me Walter's full name, the hospital where he was born, the full names and ages of his parents, where his parents were born, and the fact that he was the first child of this marriage. I'll take this over a database any day.
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