welcome to the ancestral findings podcast this is episode 212 you want your family
tree to be as flawless as possible in fact you can never get too much advice on this
subject today I'll give you some unusual tips for doing excellent genealogy work most of
these are probably not new to you but they will really help push your genealogy forward
as a genealogist your goal is to create as perfect a family tree as possible while there
are always uncertainties in genealogy and new archive discoveries as well as DNA continually
changing long-held assumptions about families from royalty to farmers getting your research as
perfect as you can with the information available to you is paramount in fact you can never have too
much advice about building a flawless family tree in helping you with your quest for excellence in
genealogical research here are some tips you might not have heard of before but are very useful in
building a strong family tree one be selective in your research your family tree has hundreds
of lines as you go back in time beyond three or four centuries it turns into thousands this is
because the number of your ancestors doubles with each generation going backward you have
four grandparents eight great-grandparents sixteen great-great grandparents thirty-two
great-great-great grandparents and so on you obviously can't just jump into your family tree
and swim around in the leaves hoping to find something useful you have to focus on one line
at a time and in doing so be selective with your research decide which branch you want to work on
first then decide if you are only going to take it back to the first immigrant to North America
or if you are going to follow it back as far in time as you can don't forget the female lines
as you do your research they are just as important to your lineage as the male lines once you've done
enough work to satisfy yourself on one branch move to another with the same amount of focus
to understand the availability of records you are going to find more records for your own generation
and the two or three just before you then anything farther back in time there are a few reasons for
this and first it will be because certain vital records were not required until the late 19th to
early 20th century as you go even farther back in time beyond the 1880s and 1890s you will discover
that all or most of the records you need simply aren't there because they have been lost during
the passage of time courthouse fires are a common reason for lost records others are
lost by courthouses archives and the families that kept them some may actually still be out there but
hidden in places no one has looked in centuries they will most likely come to light one day but
may not be available while you are researching do not get discouraged and quit if you can't find a
record you need there are usually alternative sources for most things and articles have been
written on them look for them instead three don't copy research that has already been done there's
a chance someone might have already researched your family tree their work may be online or in
the form of a published book do a check for these things before devoting too much time to a family
line however do not take everything published online or in a book as gospel either make sure
anything you find has sources and check for yourself to make sure those sources are correct
only then can you use someone else's research in your family tree if you do be sure to give them
credit in your own source citations for use the library don't let having a limited budget keep
you from doing your genealogy research some of the best research sites are expensive to use such as
ancestry.com in genealogy Bank comm ordering the records you might have found on these sites can
cost money too so save yourself some money and further your genealogy research by going to the
library there are free genealogy resources online but they are not always indexed and it can take
some time to search through them on the other hand most libraries have subscriptions to the
expensive genealogy websites and you can use them for free on the library's computers there are even
some genealogy websites that are only available to libraries such as LexisNexis and Reed X you will
want to take advantage of all of these you might even find some interesting information those who
only rely on subscription sites at home will miss five-question everything anything in genealogy
can be open to interpretation or even suspect in nature including government documents the
information on any document is only as good as the person providing it when looking at
sources question the origin of the information the reliability of the person giving it and whether
any transcription errors may have occurred also think about the time period in which the document
was generated and how certain things in that time may have different meanings in the past
than they do today always look for alternative sources as many as you can find to backup or
refute the documents you find six be organized your genealogy work will only be reliable to
future generations and publishers if you keep good records of your work as you go don't just
treat your work haphazardly like a hobby even if that is what it is even as a hobby you want your
work to be taken seriously being organized means you will know what work you have done what work
you still need to do what sources you have used and their origin and reliability having
this information is good not only for giving credibility to your work but for keeping you
on track once you have researched several lines and branches of those lines you may forget what
you've learned and what the sources you use said if your work brings you back to those lines you
will have all the information you need at your fingertips to pick it right back up again without
repeating any research work what are your reasons for doing genealogy if you are a beginner or
haven't started yet your personal reasons will be your motivation next time I'll give you the most
common reasons for doing genealogy copyright by ancestral findings all rights reserved
you