are you a beginning genealogist don't make the same mistakes at
the start that I did in today's episode of the ancestral findings
podcast I'll give you advice to help you make your research solid from the start
hindsight is 20/20 in most things in life and genealogy research is no exception I've
been doing genealogy research for 20 years and have reached the level of knowledge where I now
consider myself a good genealogist though make no mistake even good genealogists still have things
to learn and we discover new things in genealogy all the time I'm proud of the research I've done
and continue to do for myself and others yet there are so many things from my early work I could have
done differently if I'd known better then things which would make my genealogy research even more
rich detailed and rewarding today my family tree would be more solid and more like the historical
narrative I now aim for it to be we all make mistakes when we're beginning with something
before we've truly learned the craft it's true for anything you learn however if I can help
some beginning genealogists avoid some of the early mistakes I made when I was learning the
basics of this wonderful hobby I'm happy to do so here are some things I would have done
differently when I began with genealogy if I had known better maybe by learning from my mistakes
you can get a better start on your family tree and turn it into something wonderful much sooner than
I did I always had an interest in family history even when I was too young to understand what it
was I was fascinated by the history of my money maker surname and wondered who the first people
were who bore it I loved looking at old family photos and asking questions about the people
in them and I asked older relatives to tell me stories about their childhoods but this was a
childhood curiosity of my own and I had no idea I should be writing down the things that were
told to me or asking more detailed genealogy directed questions one of my great regrets is
that I didn't start doing proper genealogy work sooner now I could have gotten so many
more stories of long-gone relatives and saved a lot of time looking up the identities of those
relatives if I'd asked the right questions of the people I knew who knew them by the time I started
doing proper genealogy I was eager for information on my own great-grandfather's grandparents whose
names I did not know and who I only had a couple of stories about I tried to ask him but he had
dementia by them and could only tell me his grandparents names were Grandma and Grandpa
and couldn't tell me more stories his children never thought to ask these questions when they
were younger so they had nothing to tell me it took me nearly four more years before I
found out those names as well as their birth and death dates and even a photo of one set of his
grandparents and I discovered these things when I was helping to clean out his house after he
died you can't go back in time and begin genealogy sooner of course but I would recommend you begin
as soon as you have an inkling you might be interested get at least the basic names dates
and stories from your older relatives while they are still able to give them to you and follow up
on the research later the research will always be there but the first-hand information from the
people who knew them won't get it while you can when I first began doing genealogy I didn't know
anything about research methods beyond talking to older relatives I bought a family tree book and
went around to all my older relatives asking them the appropriate questions about the identities of
their parents and grandparents and any childhood stories they cared to share but I literally knew
nothing else I didn't know how to expand on my initial research which was frustrating I went
to the local genealogy library and had no idea what to do with those microfiche and microfilm
machines or even how to find the right books to take me further back in my family history I
would start reading beginning books on genealogy research methods and then go out and put those
methods into practice so I would learn hands-on how to use them I could have brought my research
further sooner if I'd known it wasn't until several years later when I made friends with a
fellow genealogist with a lot more experience than me that I learned about the most basic things like
ordering vital records and doing sense research ah citing sources one thing most genealogists
know they should be doing but very few actually do when you're just starting out and only have a
little bit of information you just naturally assume you will remember where you obtained
it or who told you that kind of thing gets a lot harder to keep track of the more information you
gather as you become more adept at your craft you may look back at an early piece of research years
later and have no idea where you got it or if it's even correct get a book on citing sources when
you begin your genealogical research and use it citing sources may seem like a chore at first but
you will be so glad you did it later and when you make it your regular practice it will eventually
become second nature to you and much easier to do I relied a lot on published genealogy books online
genealogy and legends about my ancestors that were told to me as a child when I began I didn't know
that all of these things need to be verified before they can go into a legitimate genealogy
in fact it is the verification that makes the genealogy legitimate the vast majority of family
tales have some major flaws in them like a game a telephone that gets played and changed through the
generations even genealogies that were published in the nineteenth century have a lot of mistakes
and online genealogies are often full of them as people copy other people's work without verifying
it don't make that mistake you don't want to have to redo an entire line of your genealogy when you
find out the third-party work you relied on was incorrect yes I had to do that once as an example
there was a family lore of my great-grandmother on my mom's side being from Germany I never met
her so I couldn't ask her I just assumed it was true but when I looked further into her history
I discovered she was actually from Virginia and it was her mother who was from Germany her son
my grandfather who I knew always insisted his mother was from Germany but it was actually his
grandmother that shows how things can get change in a story in just a generation and
a family verify everything even if it's from someone who's supposedly first-hand knowledge
because you never know when someone will make a mistake or have been given incorrect information
themselves verify and make sure your family tree is accurate the first time you'll be glad you did
are you using other people's online research on your family tree in the next episode of the
ancestral findings podcast I'll talk about some things you need to consider before putting that
info on your family tree to learn more about genealogy and sign up for our weekly giveaway
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