Talk:Opessa Straight Tail

Problem source
Cmacauley, the Shawnee Heritage books by Don Greene do not qualify as reliable sources for Wikipedia. His books are self-published genealogies that reportedly contain dubious information. We should not cite them. I'm sure you'll find enough reliable sources elsewhere for this and other similar articles. Best wishes, Kevin1776 (talk) 05:28, 13 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I am aware of this. Unfortunately, no other sources are available online that contain relevant genealogical information, and I live in a rural community far from any libraries that do, nor do I have the funds to purchase such sources. But I will delete Greene from this article anyway. Cmacauley (talk) 14:33, 13 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I understand. In cases such as this, reliable genealogical information is sparse, even in the best sources, although that doesn't prevent amateur genealogists online from happily filling in the blanks with questionable information. For example, Tecumseh is the most famous Shawnee, and yet there is no reliable information about the identities of his grandparents or the names of a couple of his wives and a potential daughter. I could find alleged names for those people online, but it wouldn't be reliable information. On such matters we must be silent, alas. Kevin1776 (talk) 18:25, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

With due respect to the fact that I am just a random Johnny-come-lately in this conversation, I disagree that we must "be silent". Rather, we must place those sources appropriately. It's true that it would be incorrect to use such sources in the main article, but the Talk page is a good place to note dubious sources for the reference of other researchers, because they may well lead to reliable sources from other editors in the future. 97.102.30.205 (talk) 15:57, 8 December 2021 (UTC)


 * We are in agreement. By "be silent," I mean exactly what you say, not placing the info in the article. We can and indeed should discuss dubious sources on talk pages. Kevin1776 (talk) 23:31, 8 December 2021 (UTC)