Many people trust information provided by other people without establishing what has actually been proven and is, therefore, known. Others find part of an answer to a question, then leave the location of known information, only to jump into an unknown state too quickly.

An example of this is when we learn from a Federal Census record that an ancestor was born in New York State. We are tempted to move away from the locality in which the census was taken, and where we are currently finding some information and could likely find more, only to jump into the state of New York (the "unknown").

Without a county or town in New York, this makes research very difficult. It would be better to gather every possible record about the ancestor in the known area before leaving that place. This includes records at the town, county, state, and federal level in the place for your ancestor.