New Standards or Old? Guidelines for Effective Research and Family Histories

Genealogists write. Their written narratives include stories of ancestral families, biographies of individual ancestors, and explanations supporting genealogical proofs. For their writing to succeed, genealogists—like all effective writers—repeatedly self-edit everything they write. The process results in polished products that the genealogist’s readers will understand, enjoy, and cherish. Emphasizing genealogical narrative, these two webinars will address the self-editing process. Part 1 will focus on “big-picture” editing, including stages of self-editing; focus; keeping the writer out of the narrative; editing the writing’s overall structure, organization, and flow; and improving major and minor subdivisions of written genealogical narratives, including paragraphing. Part 2 will focus on “nitty-gritty” editing, including capitalization, punctuation, sentence structure, spelling, word choice, and reducing word count.

Genealogists write. Their written narratives include stories of ancestral families, biographies of individual ancestors, and explanations supporting genealogical proofs. For their writing to succeed, genealogists—like all effective writers—repeatedly self-edit everything they write. The process results in polished products that the genealogist’s readers will understand, enjoy, and cherish. Emphasizing genealogical narrative, these two webinars will addresses the self-editing process. Part 1 will focus on “big-picture” editing, including stages of self-editing; focus; keeping the writer out of the narrative; editing the writing’s overall structure, organization, and flow; and improving major and minor subdivisions of written genealogical narratives, including paragraphing. Part 2 will focus on “nitty-gritty” editing, including capitalization, punctuation, sentence structure, spelling, word choice, and reducing word count.

Genealogy Standards spells out eight documentation standards, which give genealogists guidance for documenting genealogical writing. They also provide guidance for citation content, while allowing flexibility in the sequencing and structuring of citations supporting genealogical statements. This presentation will review the standards and provide examples of applying their principles.

The Internet, other technological advances, indexing projects, and DNA testing have revolutionized how genealogists conduct research. Have they also have promoted counterproductive research habits?

Information hidden below the surface or totally absent helps researchers reconstruct events, identities, and relationships that no record specifies. Such hidden information is indirect or negative evidence. This session discusses the qualities of both kinds of evidence, which are easily misunderstood. It also describes uses of indirect and negative evidence…

A case study set in the early 1800s demonstrates methodology for using autosomal DNA test results to help solve longstanding genealogical problems. Presented live at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and sponsored by the Board for Certification of Genealogy.

Even thorough research can miss relevant sources. What are the options when useful information or DNA test results appear after a researcher establishes a conclusion?

It’s hard to do genealogy well without studying your ancestors’ Friends & Family, Associates, and Neighbors - their FAN club. If your ancestors are Irish, you might have no luck at all without those FAN principles. But if you combine FAN club research with DNA, you might have just the winning ticket to get you back to your Irish ancestor’s origins. In this case study presentation, learn how focused research pointed the way from Ohio to townlands in County Mayo for an 1850s-era Irish immigrant.

Research reports are not just for professionals, but are a great tool for anyone who wants to answer their research questions. Write a research report to yourself to organize your thoughts, analyze the evidence, document your findings, and solve your puzzles. Using an example from the Netherlands, this presentation demonstrates how you can organize a research report to spot more clues in records, discover and resolve discrepancies, and build reliable conclusions.