Unemployed Genealogist

I would say that no genealogist is unemployed since there is always a stone to be turned over. However in this day when so many are unemployed it does bring to mind the fact that many who are unemployed have a project to work on. There are many skills a researcher acquires in the quest to find one ancestors. The first skills I learned was how to operate a computer. It expanded to writing, source citations, scanning, web pages, etc. Also, how to manage a database and create a reliable genealogy that will stand the test of time. Much of this knowlege comes from attending genelaogy conferences. I do not want to be considered a gatherer of names. I must admit that a gather has a place in the genealogy community but a true researcher is one step a head of a gatherer. A researcher knows why that name is there and where the details of the person were obtained. It may not be on the website but if you were to ask them they would point to a record that help them draw the conclusion. However, a sourceless gedcom is a starting place from which to create a reliable genealogy of a family.