Some conventions used in this work are as follows:

All females are identified and referred to by their maiden name, rather than their current or married name.  Thus each female has only one name used through out this work to avoid confusion.   (An exception is in the source citations where the author or supplier of information  is identified by the name they currently use which is often the married name for females.)

Place names shown are the name of the place at the time the event occurred.  Thus if someone was born in say the part of Madison County before it became Taylor County they would be shown to have been born in Madison County. 

Surnames are shown spelled in the same manner as they are found in their birth records or other commonly found records. We ususally use one common surname for all members of a family even if the records show variations in spelling.   As long as the name is phonetically the same we use one common spelling.  Also for persons born or raised in a country that does not use English as a lanuguage we spell their Names as they were know in their country including accent marks.  

The spelling we use for first and middle names generally correspond to the names found in  records.  This can cause confusion as it is not uncommon for people to use different names as they progress through various stages in their lives. Unusual nicknames are placed with the middle name in quotation marks.  Common, well known, nicknames such as Bill for William are usually not included.

A major concern, is that we spend a great deal of time and effort researching someone who is not related to us.  Our main interest is in knowing "our" ancestors and "our" roots.   We want to know who these people were, warts and all.   We document all our source material for others to review  as we firmly believe "un-sourced or un-documented genealogy is of little value as its information cannot be verified."  We are open to discuss or defend our work as our objective is to get as close to the truth as possible.  Genealogy is not a precise activity.   Records are often difficult to find, read and interpret and surprisingly often have errors in them.   Did you know that 25% of the gravestones in a cemetery have at least one error in them.   So being "carved in stone" does not mean it is accurate or correct.