What should I be wary of?

What should I be wary of?

Don't believe everything that people tell you, don't believe everything that you read because their motives for writing what they did or telling you what they did might lie hidden. There might be family skeletons that have lain hidden for many years so it would be embarrassing to rattle them out. With documents, sometimes it may be something that's been recorded some time after the event that's being described, it may be written for a particular purpose so therefore it's skewed. Sometimes you may misunderstand the handwriting in the document, it might be difficult to decipher. Sometimes the language can be very difficult to understand, as well. The more documents you can read about a certain event, or the more people you can interview about certain activities or people in the family, you've got a much rounder picture.