Ways to Deal With Family Search Documents and Geneology

See also Usa, How to Detect Genealogy Records

Why it is and so important to document and organize family history research as you go, a brief explanation of the tools needed, and how to practice information technology.

Writing in Journal

One of the virtually primal and important principles of family unit history research is to organize and document AS You Become!^[1] Practiced documentation includes:

Research logs —Fill in the purpose of each search, and source data on logs before looking at the source. After success, list where you plant the copy. Log strategies.^[two]
Family group records —Keep upwardly-to-date with source footnotes for every event. Add all events like census, armed services service, and migrations to the family group record.
Photocopies of most sources —If the repository will permit it, Ever make a photocopy.
Well-organized files —Stay organized by completing paperwork and filing before starting another search.

Value of documenting AS YOU GO! [edit | edit source]

Organizing and documenting AS You lot Go is smart because it keeps the best information at your fingertips. It saves time. Good documentation lays the groundwork for easier correlation and evaluation of sources.

If yous put off documentation until later, y'all may never practice it. This results in information clog-ups. Failure to certificate starts a chain of confusion, redundant searches, missing or disregarded show, and uninformed linkage decisions.

Value of Every bit Yous Get Logs. Skilful research logs serve as a guide to all the sources on a family researched successfully or unsuccessfully. They assist avoid repeated searches of the same unproductive sources. Good logs help you pick up research after a break. They assist in evaluation by starting your thinking about a source as you draw it on the log.

Value of Equally YOU GO Family Groups. Well-documented and up-to-date family grouping records are the best source of ideas about where to search next. They evidence all the clues and groundwork information needed to gauge proper name variations, guess dates and places of events, and estimate the near likely sources to document those events.

What it ways to document Equally YOU GO [edit | edit source]

Before you lay your caput on the pillow, practice 9 things afterward a successful search:

Photocopy the new source document.^[3]
Identify the source (blazon a footnote citation) on the front margin of the photocopy.
Write your own document filing number on the dorsum of each photocopy.
Log the document number, and summarize events-people you lot found on all appropriate research logs.^[4]
Transfer every piece of new data from the source to the appropriate family groups.
Enter new source footnotes for every piece of information on the source, even if that effect already has a footnote on the family group.
Add a preliminary assessment of the data'south reliability in the footnote comment field.^[five]
Print the updated family group.
File the updated family unit group, and source photocopy.

Document Equally You lot GO means you never start another search until you have finished the paperwork, and finished filing the previous search results.

Research Logs [edit | edit source]

At that place are two advantages to listing the source on your enquiry log BEFORE you come across the source (documenting as you go). First, it helps overcome the temptation to skip writing down sources later on an unsuccessful search. Information technology is important to know the sources without your ancestors in lodge to avert repeatedly going back to such sources. Merely it too helps to keep track of unsuccessful searches as a way of alarm this is non working—fourth dimension to change tactics.

The second reason for filling out research logs before looking at the source is because repository catalogs oftentimes depict the source better than the source itself. Also, if you use the same clarification of the source as the repository, other researchers will be able to repeat your search more hands.

Documenting as y'all go also means you explain the purpose of each search Before the search. Write the name of the person yous seek, and the event in that person's life that yous want to document. Then information technology will make sense to return to that source merely for other family unit members.

After an unsuccessful search write zilch or Ø to show you did the search simply did not find anything useful. Negative testify needs to be considered from time to fourth dimension. Seeing as well many nils is a alert it is time to do something unlike. Documenting as yous go after a successful search means you describe on your research log the people and events you found in the source, and list the identify where you accept filed the photocopy. This turns your log into a tabular array of contents of your sources.

Enquiry logs are also the best place to document your thinking and research strategies. Write lots of comments to yourself about your search strategies, suggestions, questions, and discrepancies you take noticed.

Family unit Group Records [edit | edit source]

Compile a good family unit group tape correct at the start. Cite ALL the known sources for that family unit in footnotes tied to the events they document. Have at least one source footnote for every event mentioned on the family grouping tape. Many sources include information about several events—link a footnote to every event mentioned in such sources. Apply the footnote comments field to write a brief preliminary evaluation of the source.

Add more than only nascency, marriage, and death events on the family group record. Add ALL the events including each census for each family unit fellow member throughout their lives. Also include joining or leaving churches, confirmations, acquiring or sale of state, migrations, citizenship changes, jury duty, law suits, volition probated, paid taxes, obituaries, mentioned in newspaper articles, new job, draft registration, military service, serving every bit a witness, bondsman, or godparent, working on the county road crew, jail, and warnings out. For all such events enter the date, place, cite your source, and requite a brief preliminary evaluation of that source on the family grouping record.

Documenting as you lot go means adding new events and source footnotes every bit you research. Print the up-dated family group tape frequently.

For some family situations it may also exist expert to summarize your findings and conclusions. Explain your reasoning and brand a case for what you believe happened. For case, make a proof summary argument linking an immigrant antecedent's records in the old and new worlds.

Photocopies of Sources [edit | edit source]

Photocopies are amend than handwritten copies considering photocopies show ALL the clues, including things y'all would ignore if you lot copied by manus.

Cite the footnote information in the margin on the front of the copy. This starts your thinking about and evaluation of the source.

On the back of the copy write the name of the file and file number where you lot volition shop this copy. (Also write the aforementioned file information on your research log.) Then file the copy.

Well-Organized Files [edit | edit source]

Get started well organized and stay that way. Start research on a family by preparing a new inquiry log for the family and a well-footnoted family group record.

Start each individual search by filling in part of your research log BEFORE the search. Give the date of the search, repository, purpose of the search (person and event y'all seek), and the source you volition search.

If the source does non have useful data put nil on the inquiry log. If the source has family data, immediately do the ix things listed previously.

Go along everything up-to-engagement. Don't get-go more research before doing all the paperwork and filing from the previous search—before you lay your head on the pillow. Print updated copies of the family unit group frequently.

One file for each family (parents and children) is recommended. Log and file documents prior to matrimony with the father, and after marriage with the husband. Go on the contents of each family unit'due south file in proficient lodge. Continue the files themselves in alphabetical order by the name of the head of the family.

Footnote Mode Guides [edit | edit source]

Academy of Chicago Press.The Chicago Manual of Fashion, xiv^th ed. Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Silicon Valley PAF Users Grouping. Family History Documentation Guidelines, 2^nd ed. San Jose, Calif.: SVPUG, 2000-2003.

Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Testify Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 2007.

Sources [edit | edit source]

↑ Silicon Valley PAF Users Group, "Rules for Good Documentation," in referer=brief_results Family History Documentation Guidelines, 2nd ed. (San Jose, Calif.: SVPUG, 2000-2003), vii. [FHL Book 973 D27sf].
↑ Yard. David Dilts, "Research Logs: The Well-nigh Important Tool for Organizing Your Family unit History," Genealogical Journal thirty, no. 12 (2002): 3-xiii. [FHL Book 973 D25gj v. thirty 2002].
↑ M. David Dilts, "Organizing the Evidence Using Research Logs and PAF Source Notes," (outline for class taught at the Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, 19 June 2006), 1.
↑ Elizabeth Shown Mills, concept taught by during Course 4 Advanced Methodology Prove, Institute for Genealogical and Historical Research at Samford University, Birmingham, Ala., 12-17 June 2005.
↑ Elizabeth Shown Mills, "Genealogical Mindset Principles of Scholarship" (lecture in Form 4 Advanced Methodology Evidence, Institute for Genealogical and Historical Research at Samford University, Birmingham, Ala., 13 June 2005), 4M2.

Patnode Lessilto