Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is an interview with co-founder of The Family History Guide, Bob Taylor. The FH Guide is a free website that aggregates learning resources for beginner and intermediate researchers to learn about genealogy research in step-by-step modules. Bob talks with us about the resources available at the FH Guide and walks us through the website.
Transcript
Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 147: the Family History Guide with Bob Taylor. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the creators of the Amazon bestselling book, Research Like a Pro a Genealogists Guide. I’m Nicole co-host of the podcast join Diana and me as we discuss how to stay organized, make progress in our research and solve difficult cases.
Nicole (41s):
Let’s go, Hi everyone. Welcome to Research Like a Pro.
Diana (49s):
Hi, Nicole, how are you doing today?
Nicole (51s):
Doing well, did some research this weekend on laws in England about criminal cases for our Thomas Bradley, who was in prison for manslaughter. I think he got out of it because it was self-defense.
Diana (1m 5s):
Oh, interesting.
Nicole (1m 7s):
So that was fun. I found an old law dictionary in Google books from 1820.
Diana (1m 13s):
I was just going to ask, what were you using as your source?
Nicole (1m 16s):
Yeah, I had a long section on homicide and how manslaughter was defined and the section about permissible homicide was if it was in self-defense. So I figured that’s probably what it was. I don’t know if there’s an existing case file. I’ll have to check out the Lincolnshire archives if it ever opens, but for now that’s kind of my conclusion.
Diana (1m 35s):
That’s fun to dig a little deeper, isn’t it?
Nicole (1m 37s):
Yeah, that was one of the reviews someone gave me an ProGen group that I should flush that out a little bit more.
Diana (1m 44s):
Well, do you want to hear my interesting find at the day?
Nicole (1m 47s):
Yes.
Diana (1m 49s):
So I’ve been working on writing my research report for the study group on John Isenhour and he came from Lincoln county, North Carolina stopped off in Green county, Tennessee about 1818, 1820, and then came out to Cape Girardeau, Missouri by about 1822 or three or four, you know, that’s difficult to pinpoint cause those tax lists are not ex stamped for those particular years. But in doing my reading in my book on the Ozarks, by Mr. Blevins, I came across this little part where they’re talking about the hogs and it was so fascinating. It talked all about how that was their main source of food.
Diana (2m 30s):
Like an average family could eat five pigs or hogs a year, and they also consumed bushels and bushels of corn. So they fed the corn to the animals, to the pigs and then they also ate it themselves. So I was looking at the probate for John Isenhour, our third great grandfather, and guess what he had a lot of that he was willing to his children: pigs.
Nicole (2m 57s):
Yeah.
Diana (2m 58s):
Interesting to see because he had like 20 pigs to this child and ten to this, but very few cattle or sheep, which again, in the book it talked about that they use cattle, they raised cattle, but mostly for like the milk products or the hide, but not as their main source of food and the same with the sheep, they raised the sheep for the wool, but they ate the pigs. So anyway, that was just this fun little fact that was backed up with a record, which is what I love to find.
Nicole (3m 29s):
That’s neat. Good job.
Diana (3m 33s):
That’s the fun part about writing these reports. You dig out all those interesting things. Well, let’s get to our topic of the day, which is The Family History Guide. And we’re so excited to have a guest here, bob Taylor, who is the co-founder of The Family History Guide. So welcome Bob.
Bob (3m 51s):
Thanks for having me here.
Diana (3m 52s):
You’re so welcome. We are also really privileged to get to work with Bob’s daughter, Jessica, who’s one of our researchers, she’s our Irish English Scottish expert. So that’s another fun connection we have with the Taylor family. Let’s just get started with talking about The Family History Guide. How did this evolve
Bob (4m 12s):
Back in 2014, I was serving as a Family History Consultant at a local Family History center and I noticed that each week people would come in and ask basically the same types of questions and that’s totally fine, but I thought to myself, you know, there’s probably a more efficient way of answering people’s questions. And because I have a background in technical writing and instructional design, I thought, Hmm, maybe I should put together a website. So I did that and I showed a prototype of it to Bob Bies who’s now the COO of The Family History Guide Association and long story short, we got it turned into a company and it launched in July, 2015, the website did, and we’ve become a nonprofit organization.
Bob (5m 3s):
And The Family History Guide has had visitors from over 150 countries. It’s been approved by FamilySearch as a training resource. And it’s in all the Family History Center portals worldwide.
Diana (5m 16s):
I love that you started off as a Family History Consultant and thought there had to be a better way because that’s exactly what I did. I was serving as a Family History Consultant and kept getting those same questions. And that way I’ve got to help people learn how to do this and have a, a way to help themselves.
Bob (5m 33s):
It’s wonderful.
Diana (5m 34s):
Yeah, it’s kind of fun. And that’s about the time that we started Family Locket, too was 2015. So we’ve, our paths have been sort of the same, but different types of things that we do. And I love your mission statement. I’m just going to read it here. “Our mission is to greatly increase the number of people actively involved in family history worldwide, and to make everyone’s family history journey easier, more efficient and more enjoyable.” I think that’s so great that you really are trying to make this accessible to people, that’s very necessary. And I think as we saw with RootsTech, which just had thousands and thousands of people that came online to watch presentations, and so many of them were just getting started.
Diana (6m 20s):
So I just wanted to ask, what is your audience for The Family History Guide?
Bob (6m 25s):
Actually we span several audiences. We have a beginner’s path in The Family History Guide. It’s kind of a slimmed down version of The Family History Guide. So you see fewer options, which some beginners have told us that they’d like to just have a small set of things to work with, but there’s also links to videos and websites so that intermediate researchers can find things more easily and to make progress. And for the advanced researchers, we offer a number of tools that help them accelerate their research, whether they’re working locally in the United States or internationally.
Diana (7m 1s):
Yes, I have had some of our Research Like a Pro members talk about that and say, you know, make sure you’re using The Family History Guide when you are creating your locality guide, because it’s such an easy place to get a lot of different links and a lot of different information on any locality. And I was so glad that they brought that up because I don’t know that everyone knows about it. So that’s why I’m really glad to have you here.
Bob (7m 26s):
I’m glad to be here. You know, it’s interesting that quite a few people still are finding out about The Family History Guide. Although FamilySearch has approved it as a training resource, they don’t actively advertise it on their site or in other places, although they do partnership work with us. So a lot of our promotion is on the grassroots level.
Diana (7m 48s):
And that really is the best place, I think. You know, if a friend tells you to go check out this site, then you’re much more likely than if you see an advertisement or something come through in your email. At least I am. I really like it when somebody tells me their personal experience has helped them.
Bob (8m 4s):
Yes. And another note on that The Family History Guide site is free and there are no commercial advertisements or subscriptions or anything else you just get onto the site and you’re ready to go.
Diana (8m 15s):
A lot of people appreciate that and not having to put in a password and remember that, that’s really a plus, isn’t it?
Nicole (8m 24s):
You know, when you’re talking about the audience and who this is for, I remembered that you have a great section of activities for families and children, which is something that I absolutely love. Can you tell us more about that?
Bob (8m 37s):
Be happy to. Angel Anderson is one of the leading people I would say on the internet for aggregating and creating family history activities. And we’re fortunate to have her as our marketing director for The Family History Guide Association. So on The Family History Guide, we have 200 family history activities grouped into families, individuals, youth, and children, and the children activities. Those are things that kids can actually get on the website and discover themselves and use, we’ve adapted them that way. But this gives a tremendous resource, especially for people who don’t have a lot of time for young families and so forth.
Bob (9m 21s):
They can grab a quick family history activity and customize it to their needs. We even have tracking sheets and things that help you plan what you’re doing with activities. So this has been a powerful way to get people involved and interested in family history.
Nicole (9m 38s):
That is really great. I think it’s nice to have something that a child can just get on and do right there as well as ideas for parents to plan. So thank you for adding that. Another part of your website that is really important is the section that talks about each country and researching in specific places. So how do those country pages help people who are just getting started in a new area?
Bob (10m 4s):
We call them goals. They are like information pages. The first goal in each of the different country pages has to do with basic research. So if you look in the countries menu, for example, in The Family History Guide, it’s a dropdown menu and you can go to any region of the world and pick out the country that you’re interested in. So if you went to Ireland, for example, the first goal would deal with basic research techniques. So there’s links to articles and videos that can help you, but there are also other topics like vital records, civil registration, immigration, all these types of things. And the last goal typically in each of the country, pages is something we call get help.
Bob (10m 50s):
And that has links for Facebook groups, genealogy, societies, message boards, all sorts of different places where someone who’s just starting out can link up with a community to get help and answer individual questions as well. One thing I might mention is that The Family History Guide does not house any records itself. What it does is it acts like an information hub. So it points you to record sources in FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, Find My Past and other places quickly and efficiently.
Nicole (11m 27s):
That’s so useful. It’s really nice to have a place that has put all the information you needed in one helpful article. I love that you have a section for connecting with other people who are researching or who are experts in that area because, you know, I don’t usually see that on the FamilySearch Wiki, but that’s like a very helpful thing to be able to do is to join a Facebook group for Irish research or whatever it is. And there’s actually a lot of Facebook groups for genealogy research.
Bob (11m 59s):
There are an astounding number of Facebook groups, thousands and thousands. One of the challenges of The Family History Guide is to pair down the information to what we think would be most useful for people. Because if we included everything that we could think of, it would just be way, way too much. So we organize the information and we channel it and customize it, weave and layer it so that the most important stuff is first that you would see and then followed by the secondary information so that people get in and they can find something quickly that they can use and not get overwhelmed by a lot of information.
Nicole (12m 36s):
That must be a big challenge.
Bob (12m 38s):
It was a huge challenge when I started doing this, sometimes I felt like I was literally swimming across the Pacific ocean. There was so much information. And yet as I got practice with paring things down and organizing them in a sense that people would want to see this first and that second and so forth, it all fell into place pretty well. And the learning system and model that we have now really does help people learn more efficiently and quickly.
Nicole (13m 6s):
I think it’s good to think about what someone needs first, you know, when they’re just starting as opposed to like, as they have done some research in there a little bit further down there,
Bob (13m 15s):
Right? And this is something I saw in Family History centers, quite a lot people would come in and they just felt overwhelmed. Like where do I start? And there’s just so much out there and that highlighted the need of structuring the information and making it easy to find in you.
Nicole (13m 30s):
That probably was so helpful that you got to work with beginners at The Family History center all the time to really understand what people needed.
Bob (13m 39s):
Yeah. Definitely was a help.
Nicole (13m 41s):
So when there are new resources, do you go back and add those to the country pages? That sounds like a lot of work.
Bob (13m 48s):
Yes, you’re exactly right. It is a lot of work. One aspect of that is when FamilySearch or Ancestry or their sites change their features or change their URLs, then we’re responsible to get those changed correspondingly on our website. We definitely want to stay in sync and that the links up to date and so forth. So we are looking for new resources all the time. We even have BYU interns that help us out on that effort. And if there are ever links that don’t work, we typically get those fixed within 24 hours. Sometimes people report that there’s a broken link and we are right on it.
Nicole (14m 28s):
Oh, that’s great. Links seem to break out a lot of times.
Bob (14m 31s):
Yeah, it’s, it’s amazing how many different sites will change the structure of links or move things around. And that breaks links and other places. But a lot of websites have, have figured out that the less they change things, the happier other people are. And so that has saved our skin on a number of occasions that a lot of sites are reluctant to do wholesale changes that way, because they know that there are lots of collateral links out there.
Diana (14m 57s):
So talking about links, I think it’s really nice that you have something called Quicklinks, it’s a special feature under each country or a United States county that sends you directly to those record collections. So why did you decide that you wanted to have these links, even though it is kind of difficult to keep them updated?
Bob (15m 21s):
Part of our mission is to make people’s family history experience more efficient. So if you think about going through and learning different concepts about international or United States research, you do some reading, you do some digging and then it’s time to start searching for the records that you need. But it’s one more level of complexity to then break away from what you’re reading and then go into a particular platform like FamilySearch or Ancestry and navigate through the screens and so forth to find the record collection you’re looking for. And you have to do that multiple times if you’re looking in multiple platforms.
Bob (16m 1s):
So with quick links, we basically put direct links to those record collections, right in the subject topic area that you’re working with. So if you’re working with Irish civil registration, for example, right there, you’ll see eight to 10 to 12 links that you can click from FamilySearch, Ancestry, other places that take you directly to the record collections. So you don’t have to spend the extra time navigating around.
Diana (16m 28s):
That’s really beneficial because there are becoming more and more places online that we can find these record collections. You know, we have the big ones like Ancestry or Find My Past, or MyHeritage. Are you also linking to lesser known collections as you find them? Or are you sticking mainly to those large companies that have a lot of different records?
Bob (16m 51s):
We stick mostly with the larger partners, Ancestry, Find My Past, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, but we do link to quite a few databases inside the projects and country pages. You’ll find links to databases that you can go out and access the, it gives you the URL and within those database pages, you can do specific searches. So there are hundreds and hundreds of links in The Family History Guide that take you to German, English, Italian different databases, where you can do that type of digging. But for quick links, those are mostly focused on the large partners.
Diana (17m 30s):
So it sounds like we really need to learn how to navigate The Family History Guide. It’s really laid out well, but it sounds like there, like he said, there are layers and layers of it. So for someone just starting out, how would you recommend that they get started?
Bob (17m 45s):
We actually have a tour on the homepage. There’s a tour button and you click that. It pops up a side panel and you can open up links that basically take you step-by-step on a beginner’s approach through the types of things that you would see in The Family History Guide. Also using the menus that appear across the top is an easy way to get to just about any place in The Family History Guide. The website is also available for tablets and mobile devices. So the menus will then be a function of that three line icon. The site basically detects whether you are using a lap top or mobile or phone. So there’s no app for The Family History Guide is just auto detected and the menus are your guide to getting around.
Bob (18m 31s):
We also have a search button where you can do an internal Google search within The Family History Guide site to find just about any topic. And we have a separate topics page. So if you’re looking for adoption or English immigration, you could just type in those keywords and get to wherever you need to be.
Diana (18m 49s):
I love that you have a search bar because sometimes I don’t want to have to dig down. I just want to put in my search and then find all the information that I can really quickly,
Bob (18m 59s):
But we also have a languages button. So if people are working in different languages, you can get the entire site automatically translated via Google translate.
Diana (19m 7s):
That is amazing there are languages I have never heard of on here. And I’m sure that really helps with your worldwide focus.
Bob (19m 14s):
Yes, it’s right in line with the mission statement of taking family history to the ends of the earth. We also have translated videos and videos with audio subtitles to help in the language translation.
Diana (19m 28s):
That’s wonderful. So how has The Family History Guide different from the research Wiki on FamilySearch?
Bob (19m 35s):
That’s a good question. Here’s a couple of items that can help you differentiate. First of all, we’re smaller and lighter than the FamilySearch Wiki. FamilySearch Wiki has probably over 90,000 articles. We don’t actually have a lot of original articles. Like I mentioned before. We point to different resources and we are step based. So sequential learning, all of that we have on The Family History Guide feeds into our learning system of projects, goals, choices, and steps. So you’ll find that structure throughout The Family History Guide. And that’s different from the Wiki where you don’t have that type of learning structure ingrained.
Bob (20m 16s):
We also have embedded videos, which the FamilySearch Wiki does not. And like I mentioned before, our quick links are in context, right? With the subject matter. Those are some of the basic differences between the two.
Diana (20m 30s):
Yeah. I can see that you’re just organized differently. And I think it’s really good to have both resources. You know, I would go to both to see how to research, especially starting a new area. Like we have a new research project coming up in May that’s going to have some Polynesian work. And I’m looking right now at your section on Tonga, and it’s great that you pulled together a lot of different basics on researching there. You know, this can be someone’s go-to place as well as the FamilySearch Wiki to get up to speed and researching in any locality. Cause it sounds like they just really work together well.
Bob (21m 9s):
Yes they do.
Nicole (21m 10s):
So I see that you have a section on The Family History Guide website about research and research skills. Can you tell us a little bit more about what’s there
Bob (21m 20s):
When you go to project for discover and it’s also called project for research. They’re actually four paths of FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, and Find My Past. Those are all basically the same for research, except we have some platform specific goals. Like it describes how to use FamilySearch tools and record collections, likewise with Ancestry and so forth, but shared across all of those are some common goals. And I’ll just kind of go through them really quickly. First of all, there’s a get organized goal and then identify aligned to research. Then third is form a strategy and then we have developed search skills and finally solve problems.
Bob (22m 7s):
So each of these goals are divided up into choices and steps and links to articles and videos. The idea being that we want to help people learn the best of the best techniques and principles. So these sections help you find really solid principles, whether you’re a beginner or advanced that you can base your research on without having to reinvent the wheel. And I could do a shameless plug for Family Locket here because we referenced a lot of Family Locket blog posts on different research techniques here in The Family History Guide. So we want people to learn the best of the best, and this is the way that we do it.
Nicole (22m 47s):
That’s great. I really think this is an important section, you know, to help people figure out how to stay organized as they’re going along, which is something we teach a lot, like you mentioned. So what a great section and I’m looking now, and I love these embedded videos that are there as well, so that people who would rather watch something there’s like all different types of learning available. You can read, you can watch whatever works best for you.
Bob (23m 13s):
It is so important because we find that some people just want just the facts, ma’am, just the facts type of approach though. They would rather read through some steps on, okay, I get it. Other people would rather read an article and some people are visual learners. They’d rather see things presented in a video. So you have the choice with The Family History Guide. You can use any of those learning models and they’re mixed in together. So you can choose them fairly easily.
Diana (23m 38s):
Well, we have also found that, that people like the different learning systems, we like to have a blog post that goes along with each podcast because people will listen to us talking about something, but then they want to go read it and they want to have those links and everything. Definitely.
Bob (23m 54s):
Yes.
Diana (23m 55s):
Let’s talk a little bit about specific types of records like land or tax records. How can we find those kinds of pages? Because I know a lot of people want to learn how to research and something that’s a little bit more difficult or more unusual, and I’m sure you’ve got some really good helps on The Family History Guide for that.
Bob (24m 17s):
Speaking of things like land and tax records, the first place to start might be the United States pages. When you go to the United States country page, you’ll find a goal listed for property, land, probate tax, that type of thing. And that would be your place to start both for United States research and just general principles. There’s also the different country pages. So if you’re working in England or Scandinavia or wherever, you can go to those country pages and chances are, there will be a separate goal for that particular record type, whether it’s vital records or land and probate property records. So you can go to that page and start working through the steps and the articles and videos and so forth and work that way as well.
Diana (25m 6s):
So you can basically do your own little mini class, just going to that type of record and you can read about it. You can watch videos about it, and then you can actually try to do some research.
Bob (25m 18s):
Absolutely. And you mentioned an interesting word, a mini class, because that’s exactly what we have envisioned not only for individual learners who want to teach themselves, it makes it a lot easier to do that. But for family history instructors, The Family History Guide can be an amazing teaching tool because instructors can go right to the website and prepare a mini class of 10 to 15, even up to a half an hour’s time using the videos and articles and links in The Family History Guide without having to prepare, elaborate PowerPoint, decks and handouts and that type of thing. So people are discovering that that’s a great training tool as well.
Diana (25m 60s):
And not to mention that, then after they’ve done that little mini class, they can send people back to their own computer who can replicate that and they can go back and watch things again and try it. And they don’t have to, like you say, prepare handout, Nicole and I have both done our share of PowerPoints and handouts and they take a lot of time.
Bob (26m 20s):
That’s true. Yes. And people, like you say, can continue on what happens after the class. Well, The Family History Guide is the continuation module. You might say, you can go and know exactly where you could continue with that lesson, the got presented.
Diana (26m 34s):
I also really like the term you use at the beginning, how you curate the material. Because sure, we can all do Google searches, you know, how to do naturalization records, but then you come up with so many hits and which one is the best and what order should you read them in? And which one is at your level. So the way you organize that, I’m just looking at your page on, learn about naturalization in the United States, because that’s something that a lot of people want to know how to do. They have immigrant ancestors and they want to figure that out, but it sounds scary and hard. And how do you do it? So, you know, you’ve got an introduction to it. You’ve got learning more, you’ve got specifics. And then you have the explore the lists.
Diana (27m 16s):
So pretty fun. Yeah.
Bob (27m 19s):
Yeah. We’ve actually had a few people tell us, well, I can just Google things. I don’t need to use your site. And that’s true. You can just Google things. But we found that there’s a great fatigue factor that enters in with having to sort through Google results and try to make determinations about which might be helpful and which are not. So having a site with that curation done for you, I think is tremendously helpful.
Diana (27m 45s):
I would agree. So the knowledge bases you recommend going straight to the country and then from the country page, you can select all the different types of records that could be valuable.
Bob (27m 60s):
Yes. Speaking of knowledge bases, there’s actually a separate section in project for discover. There is a link to a knowledge base and this is United States and general research. But in that knowledge base, if you open up the different topics, you’ll find bullet lists of small items. And I kind of compare it to a snack pantry. You know, if you need just a small bit of information, or you’re curious about starting research in a different country, you might want to absorb just some small bits of information. And that is a great place to do that. We also have a country’s knowledge base at the bottom of the countries menu, where you can select a country and get bullet point information bits about church records, immigration naturalization, vital records, whatever.
Diana (28m 50s):
I think that’s good. I know from my experience, I read about how to do a certain type of research, but it’s when I’m in the middle of it and I’m coming across a record and I’m looking at it on my screen and I don’t understand it. That’s when I have to go back to the information on that type of record. And then because I’m having some experience with it, I learn it so much better, which is why I always say you just have to dive in and start doing this research, getting into the records, using it, because then it’s more meaningful, what you learn about it,
Bob (29m 19s):
Right. And the knowledge base is because they’re designed around those small bits of information. That’s a great way to increase your family history IQ a little bit at a time when you have spare bits and pieces of time.
Diana (29m 32s):
Great.
Nicole (29m 34s):
So if you want to learn about some more of these advanced topics like DNA or other areas that you might have to dig a little deeper for, where would we go in the site to find that?
Bob (29m 46s):
Okay, so there are two main areas of the website for research in the front part. You might say you have the projects, so you can select any project in FamilySearch, Ancestry, and so forth up at the top menu. You mentioned DNA. So in FamilySearch the DNA project, there is more geared towards basic concepts that would apply to any type of DNA research situation. And then in Ancestry, you have goals and information that help you sort out how to deal with DNA matches from an Ancestry test. MyHeritage, likewise from a MyHeritage test and Find My Past.
Bob (30m 26s):
But once you get past all of those basics, if you want to dive even deeper and find more information, you can go to a place that we call the vault. And this is where we have secondary information that’s useful, but we didn’t think that it should be there in the main part as well, because we want to prevent information overload. So when the vault, you can go and explore literally thousands of other links to articles and videos about whatever topic you want. And it’s a fun place to kind of browse around and get lost in for awhile to see we have links that send you back and forth between the main part and the vault part. So you can correlate the information.
Nicole (31m 6s):
Oh, that’s nice. That’s great that you have some additional information for diving deeper, but that it’s not there in the front to overwhelm and make people think, oh no, there’s too much information
Bob (31m 18s):
That is a critical part. And we solved that problem way up front. We’ve said for any step in The Family History Guide, there will never be more than like two links to articles or videos. That’s it, you know, to prevent the feeling of overwhelm, but for people who want to know more, the Vault’s a wonderful place.
Nicole (31m 39s):
Great.
Diana (31m 40s):
Well, I certainly have learned a ton about The Family History Guide. I’m just going to spend the next little bit looking more at some of your resources and it is fun that I am seeing a lot of our blog posts here in the Vault with the Family Locket back to basics series with different types of records and other articles. So thank you so much for linking to what we do.
Bob (32m 1s):
You’re welcome. There’s quite a few of those in the main section too, in different research areas. So the more you dig, the more Family Locket you’ll find.
Diana (32m 10s):
Oh, that’s awesome. Well, I think we’re on the same mission, helping everyone do family history better.
Bob (32m 17s):
Yeah, absolutely. And thanks to you for the wonderful work that you do and making research easier and, and reaching out to people who are getting started and the experts.
Diana (32m 27s):
Well, we love doing it. It’s something that I wish I would have had these kinds of resources available when I started, you know, Nicole and I both started at the same time, about 2003, and we just had to learn on our own. We had a few different things out there to help us, but now there’s so many wonderful resources, but with that, it can be overwhelming too. So, yes. So I think my big takeaway from talking to you is hearing how this is a way for people not to have overwhelm. And I, I really appreciate that as well as the fact that you’re reaching all levels, that you’ve got something for everyone here and for anyone who’s listening and thinking, well, I don’t need to learn about that.
Diana (33m 9s):
You know, I would really encourage you to dig deeper, go into the Vault, see if there’s some things there that can really help you as well as working on locality guides. We’re always talking about really finding the information quickly for your locality. And I think this is a perfect place to really get started with a locality guide. Well, is there anything else that we have not asked you about
Bob (33m 33s):
As you’re talking about locality guides I was thinking The Family History Guide also has links to all of the counties in each of the United States. And so there’s links to the FamilySearch county resources, Ancestry, genealogy links. We even have links to Facebook help groups for counties at that level. And then we take it down to English counties, Australian states, Canadian provinces. So we go from the top down to the bottom.
Diana (34m 0s):
So you’ve kind of taken some of the work out of that since you’ve already discovered the links. And so we could just quickly go in and take what we need specifics without having to do that work ourselves. Thank you so much, Bob. This has been super fun. And for all of our listeners, we have a blog post on Family Locket that Bob wrote a guest post that goes over a lot of these things. We’ve talked about how some screenshots has direct links to these different sections on The Family History Guide. So if you’re interested in taking a look that’s available for you and we’ll link to that in the show notes. So thank you again. And maybe we’ll run into you in person sometime again, it would be fun to get back to conferences and those in-person events.
Bob (34m 44s):
Oh, definitely. Yes. I, I miss the brick and mortar experience of RootsTech. Although the virtual experience was wonderful. There’s something about being able to shake hands and meet and talk. So hopefully past this pandemic, it’ll come back.
Nicole (35m 1s):
Alrighty. Well, thanks Bob. We’ll hopefully see you soon and thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in today. And we’ll talk to you guys again next week.
Diana (35m 9s):
All right. Bye bye. Thank you.
Bob (35m 12s):
Great.
Nicole (35m 12s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our book Research Like a Pro a Genealogist Guide on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our Research Like a Pro online course or join our next Study Group. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com to share your progress and ask questions. Join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our e-course or Study Group. If you like what you heard and would like to support this podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.
Links
The Family History Guide: A Researcher’s Friend
Kids Corner at the FH Guide
Countries page at the FH Guide
Vault page at the FH Guide
Study Group – more information and email list
Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist’s Guide by Diana Elder with Nicole Dyer on Amazon.com
Thank you
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