This week’s question is about advice. What’s the best advice you’d give to a new genealogist?
What Advice Would You Give To A New Genealogist?
Don't Bark Up The Wrong Tree
Don't Bark Up The Wrong Tree
This week’s question is about advice. What’s the best advice you’d give to a new genealogist?
I believe most have already been covered –
1. Interview older generations of family members. Have a Q&A – use a recorder. I did this when I was doing research in Kentucky. Family members would take me around to other homes, introduce me, and they would talk about my great grandfather and other family members. I also learned which cemetery family members were buried at.
2. Document the sources of information – whether it was from an interview, personal knowledge, or records (birth, marriage, death, census, directories, etc). I’m having to go back and double-check my information and note where it came from. That’s hard to do years after the fact. I started my research in 1980 (paper method only) and converted to a software database without adding the documented proof.
3. If at all possible, join your local genealogical society. They are a great reference source – either through monthly meetings, annual seminars, or special interest groups. I am currently a member of my local genealogical society as well as several family associations and lineage societies.
Marcy, great advice. I might ad that when you use a recorder you don’t do what I did and try new technology without being really familiar with it. Spend an afternoon thinking things were recording and they weren’t. Happy hunting.
Do not copy from other trees. They may or may not have researched the family.
Yes use them only as possible hints. Happy hunting.
Sources!!!! Record the sources for your facts. And be organized.
Deb, absolutely right. Happy hunting
Happy Birthday girl!
thanks Lynette. 🙂
The best advice I can give is to interview members of older generations.
Back in the 1980s I was laid off a job and went to visit my parents inFlorida. While I was there, my father’s sister held a “cousins club” reunion which I attended. I thought I was going to recognize almost everyone, but I knew les than half the people there!
The next day I went to her house and asked her who all these “strangers” were. She took out a blank piece of paper and drew a very detailed family tree, and from that moment on, I was hooked on genealogy, especially when I found out that my grandfather was the youngest of 4 brothers from Poland, and his oldest brother had settled in England, while the others (including my grandfather) went to the US.
And now, thanks to DNA, I have found cousins allover the world!
Annette, It’s amazing how spread out the family can get in such a short time and how close you can be also. I just found a 3c2x removed and we connect back to Oxfordshire, England and I found him living in the same city I’m in in Canada. Happy hunting