Kevin,

You posted a statement with which I completely agree about the importance of source material and references: you then posted an excerpt about the Barbets (about whom I know nothing and care less) without giving any reference for your statement. When asked you told me it was Col Elting.

Now I mean absolutely no disrespect to that gentlemen when I say that I doubt if he did original research into the Barbets himself given that it was not his main field of study. I assume that he would have taken this from some other historian so, if we really want to know about the Barbets (and I am really only using this as an example) we need to know who his source was. And if that was a general history then where that book got its material from.

The whole point about sources is that one should be able to trace a statement back to its source, which is the purpose of references, and if that is not possible then, no matter how high one's opinion of the last writer is, the statement has no real value.

regards,

Susan