Issue 5.15
Part 1
Family history is like putting a puzzle together as we gather lots of pieces and then see if we can put them together to make a complete family. The basic way to put a puzzle together is to build the frame by using the pieces with a straight edge and use that as the foundation. The basic way to put together a genealogy is to build a pedigree and use that as a foundation to fill in.
Sometimes we are so anxious to get started on our family history that we may overlook the fundamentals and just look for the fun or the famous, or a tree already online. But, we want to build a firm foundation for our work or we could end up making a mess for ourselves and for others. You can try to make things fit as my grandson does with the puzzle pieces, even though they don’t fit at all. Here are a few ideas that I consider important for family history research, to keep us on the right path.
Start with what you know and prove each link of the pieces, one generation at a time. Use the information you have and work back in time, one generation to another. Document! Document all of your findings because this adds credibility, reduces mistakes, teaches you how to do research, and allows you and others to reconstruct the research process and find what you found. This is getting easier all the time with the new free records at https://www.familysearch.org/ plus many other online genealogy search sites.
If you cannot find an actual source to prove a relationship, try to disprove it. Sometimes it is easier to disprove a theory than it is to prove it. If you cannot disprove a relationship, the stronger your theory becomes.
Watch the family lore, take it with a grain of salt and don’t be surprised if the story and the reality don’t match up. Just because you have the same surname, doesn’t necessarily mean you are related. A lot of families think they descend from an elusive ancestor who was a Cherokee princess. They are not real, Cherokees never had princesses. You may need to do more research to see where this story came from.
Focus on one question for one person or family at a time. Find your father’s sources, even though you know who your grandparents are, see if you can find documents to prove it. Then find your mother’s sources, then your siblings, etc. If they are living, move back in time to deceased relatives.
Don’t just find the answer and move on quickly, check out all the records available that you can find about that ancestor. You may now find interesting war records, land records, histories, wills, newspapers, photographs, etc. Why not just stick with the death certificate? You may expand your knowledge and understanding of the family, find additional clues, and find contradictions. You may also prove or disprove your relationship and keep yourself from getting off track.
Don’t expect exact or consistent spelling of names and places. Clio and Cleo may or may not be the same person in the family, depending on the occasion, we can’t necessarily decide by just using the spelling of the name. Think phonetically while you are searching.
Search by full names, part names, nicknames, maiden names, married names, abbreviated names and initials! You need to search for the name that was listed at the time of the event. When I search I do not fill in all of the blank boxes. Just because they list a place for the first name, last name, parents names, birth date, birth place, death date, death place, etc. doesn’t mean you need to fill them all in. Think “less is more.” If you fill in all of the fields, the search engine will only find records that match all of those fields. Just search for a name, if that brings back an unmanageable list to look through, then add one clue at a time until you get to a more manageable search.
Don’t forget to keep track of where you have looked and which sites you have searched. Keep a research log, there is even an app for that now, Research Logger for the iPhone and iPad. If you think your ancestor should be in a record set, keep searching, try last name only with the birth year, etc. It may be indexed incorrectly or hard to read on the record.
For more information, contact Shanna Jones shannasjones@msn.com (435) 628-4900.