There are a lot of textbooks that describe how to find your ancestors; this one by Richard Hite clarifies how not to. In short, "Sustainable Genealogy" explains how to avoid the traps many family historians can fall into. Whether it's a proud family legend, a venerable publication, or the claims of an Internet family tree, the unsubstantiated genealogical source is like a house of sticks before the Big Bad Wolf--it won't stand up. As Mr. Hite demonstrates in this collection of case studies, many are the "oral traditions that have fallen by the wayside under the lens of careful research in primary sources and more recently, DNA testing."
