Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about a case study Diana wrote about the father of Mary French. Determining the maiden name and parents of a woman born in the late 1700s is one of the most difficult genealogical undertakings. Because women were not mentioned in many of the records of the era, few sources exist to prove their parentage. Combine that with record loss and the task becomes even more difficult. Descendants...
Have you ever seen a complete date and place for an ancestor’s birth, death, or marriage, but no source is attached as proof? Have you wondered where that information originated? With the proliferation of online trees and copying of data, tracing a genealogy fact back to an original posting can help verify or disprove it. Two websites can be explored to find complete family tree submissions: Rootsweb and FamilySearch Genealogies. Rootsweb When Nicole and I...
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about proof arguments. We discuss different types of proofs, including proof statements, proof summaries, and proof arguments. Then we discuss the requirements for the case study element of the portfolio for certification and go over the rubric indicators that show if a case study has met the standards. We talk about resources for helping you with proofs and logical arguments. We also discuss various methods for...
Do you use MyHeritage or Findmypast in your research? Have you wondered how to create a layered source citation from one of these websites? In this final article of this series, I’ll once again give you examples of using the basic citation elements of who, what, when, where, and wherein to create citations that reflect both the digital and physical source information. Links to the first two articles about creating citations for FamilySearch and Ancestry...
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is a celebration of our 100th episode! We are excited to share our top ten tips about how to research like a pro. We put the list together based on the questions we are most commonly asked in study groups and in our Facebook group. Listen in to find out more about objectives, timelines, locality guides, hypotheses, researching in phases, layered citations, multiple pages in a research log,...
Creating source citations from online materials can be confusing and vary from website to website. In Part 1 of this series, we looked at a source document hosted on Ancestry. I showed the process I use to create a citation that includes the basic citation elements of who, what, when, where, and wherein. This article will focus on citing sources found on FamilySearch – those indexed and not indexed. Citation for a Record Indexed on...
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about the Kinship Determination Project (KDP), the narrative family history work sample portfolio element submitted to the Board for Certification of Genealogists. The KDP element shows your ability to prove parent-child links as well as tell the story of a family in their unique place and time. There are three formats of narrative family histories – narrative genealogy, narrative lineage, and narrative pedigree. We discuss these terms...
Have you wondered how to create a source citation for a record found on a website like FamilySearch or Ancestry? With the majority of our research now done online, understanding the basics of citation can help us accurately cite our sources and create a path back to the original source. In this three-part series we’ll look at different examples that illustrate the principles needed to construct a citation for a source from any website. First...
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about finding records for the friends, associates, and neighbors of your ancestors in archives. Melissa Barker, the Archive Lady, teaches us all about archives. Tune in to learn more about different types and levels of archives, what you might find there, and best practices for using them. Links What Your Ancestor’s Neighbors Can Tell You – handout by Melissa Barker RLP 55 – It’s Not All Online:...
Have you been dragging your feet when it comes to researching your ancestors in a different country? Reading historical documents can be difficult and is only compounded when another language is involved. Perhaps the records are confusing and the jurisdictions are different. Sooner or later you’ll need to tackle a new research locality, so let’s explore two excellent websites that can take the pain out of the learning: The FamilySearch Research Wiki and The Family...