2009/4/29 wjhonson@aol.com:
The main problematic sources are not the ones from the 19th century, but rather the pseudo-historical ones that are being spewed out like .... spew, right now. I picked up a copy of Laurence Gardiner's book "Bloodline of the Holy Grail" for a buck, not because I think it has any substantive worth whatsoever (which it does not), but because I wanted to track down what his sources were for his absurdly fantastic genealogical charts. My "absurdly fantastic" I mean "wholely lacking in evidence and in some cases utterly preposterous to boot".
One of the most educational aspects of working on Wikipedia is realising just how bad other sources (including all journalistic "reliable sources") can be, and that the main practical difference between us and them is that here you can see inside the sausage factory, there you can't.
- d.