I agree with you - I think it's been happening for a number of years.

I have the ability in my genealogy softwrae to enter a custom source as "Author's assumption" or "Author's note" which is my way of indicating that I have no primary or secondary sources however family stories, interviews, etc. COULD lead to a hypothesis. Unfortunately, some never look at footnotes (citations, sources, etc.) and just copy.

Julie
www.jrwhiskey.com