How can you go to a specific destination if you don't know
where you're going when you set off? You're not going to get
very far, right? Well, in genealogy far too often, we try
to accomplish this very fact. Research without a destination.
Well, today, we're going to help you become a better
genealogist and have a specific destination you have in mind
when you research.
Howdy. I'm Devon Noel V and this is Family History Fanatics
where we teach you how to climb your tree further, faster, and
have a whole lot of fun along the way. Now, what is the first
step to becoming a better genealogist? If you said
developing a research question, you get an A plus. You are the
teacher's pet today. So, the fundamental step into becoming
a better genealogy researcher is to develop a research
question. The where do you want to go in your research journey
and the more specific you can make your question, the better
off you will be. Now, many of you are trying to prove your
lineage and so you think your question is, who am I related
to from the Mayflower? Okay, that's not a good question.
We'll talk about that. Why in a minute? Others of you are
trying to join a lineage society of the first settlers
of some place. Let's say Ohio or Wisconsin or something. You
question might be who was my first ancestor in Ohio and were
they a first slettler of that state or territory at the time
okay that's a question but let's talk about why it's not a
good question but do you recognize that in genealogy
it's kind of like opening a can of Prinkles once you pop you
can't stop doing genealogy research we just kind of go and
go and go and go and go the more addicting and more fun it
become but we need to all come back to this. What is the
question we're trying to answer today? There are three basic
types of questions you're going to be trying to solve in
genealogy. The first relates to an event in someone's life. You
know, birth, marriage, death. So, vital events that happened
in somebody's life. The second type of question is going to be
relationship. Genealogy is the study of relationships. So, who
is related to whom and how and then your third question
category is more biographical. Tell me more about and put it
insert the name of your ancestor. Okay. So, that's a
high-level overview. Let's get a little more specific. Your
event questions are when and where did this happen in this
person's life? Pretty basic. When when someone born, when
and where did someone die? Event questions. The next kind
of are those relationship questions. Who was the first
wife of Edward T Rang? Or who are the children of two people?
And finally biographical questions. Was someone a
doctor? Were they a lawyer? Were they a farmer? Um did they
participate in the Civil War? They're of age but did they
serve or not? Additional biographical informations are
physical description, land ownership, all of the little
details that you're going to find that are the stories that
are the dash between the dates, the birth, and the death,
that's all biographical. So, you're the bulk of your
questions are going to fall there when you become a
thorough researcher but as a beginner, events and
relationship questions are where you're going to start
out. Now, I showed you a number of basic questions from those
categories but they're still too broad by because how are
you going to know you have the right person when you ask a
question that is so broad. So, we need to develop a better
research question. Every question in genealogy research
is based on previous information. This is one of the
reasons why many educators tell you to start with yourself and
work your way backwards because in so doing, you're working
from what you know and then working backwards asking
questions along the way because you start with yourself and the
first thing you're going to prove is when were you born and
basic questions right so every question is based on something
else so you need to ask yourself what triggered the
question that I have let's review this because I am all
about teaching you how rather than just giving you theory.
When and where was Christian born? How did I come up with
that question? It did pop out of thin air. It was based on
something. It was based on a marriage record. I saw that
Christian married a relative Anna Margaret Carlsberger. I
love that name. So great. And when I saw that he married her
I want to know he was born so they can add him to the family
tree that I'm creating for Anna Margareta Carlsberger the next
one who was the first wife of Edward Ting. Hm what triggered
that? Ah. He had a marriage certificate to someone named
Nancy Cole and on that document it said he had been married
previously. Trigger. Marriage certificate. So as you do your
research and you develop your question, they're always based
on something that you had known or previously known before you
came to that question. Sound good? So now that we know what
triggered the question, we need to enhance our question with
more specifics so that when we find the answer to the
question, we know if it's right or not. I love clue webs and
you can see a link to a previous video about clue webs
that I discussed on this channel and then wait for the
end of this video and you'll have a link to the research
over my shoulder series where I use clue webs a lot. So let's
go to the clue web and put in my question and the information
I have know in order to nail down my question so that it is
a quality research question. First, I want to know when and
where was he born? In order to do that, I need to give some
specific information about him so that I know that I'm
researching the right man. I know that he married Anna
Margaret the Growlsberger, right? I said that earlier.
Well, which one where? I need to give a time and place as
much as possible. Well, I know that they married in Franklin
County, Ohio in 1859. So, that can be part of the clues that I
have to help me write a better research question so that I
know that destination where I get there because otherwise, I
can be researching two people, a John and a Mary and there's
lots of John's who married Mary's, right? So, let's see if
I can add any other information to make sure I have a quality
question. In this case, I happen to know that Christian,
Christopher, and Anna had three children and I went ahead and
named them. Now, I could even add more details about these
three children but I think we have enough to get started
writing a better question than one I had before. Here is that
basic question. When and where was Christian born? I want the
birth date and place of Christian Christopher Papa who
married Anna Margaretta and I put in the date and place and
then named the three children. So if I come across a record
that doesn't fit for this family, this man, then I might
video, be sure to give it a thumbs up and if you want to go
ahead and check out the videos I mentioned earlier, here they
are. I