The researching of family history as a hobby has seen something of a popular revival since the arrival of the internet, and it continues to thrive, with online genealogical providers springing up in the masses. More and more people are realizing that their own family backgrounds have a personal and historical importance entirely of their own, and so perhaps these searchers are expressing a renewed importance on their own lineage, whatever its conditions.
Before you join the leap into your own family history, there are a few preparatory measures and overall things to bear in mind that will stand you in good stead by focusing your practice and by forming good research habits from the outset:
Label and file your findings: From the very first tentative look into a provisional family tree, you will be accumulating paperwork, all of which should be filed in a pragmatic way (i.e. not simply stuffed into a foolscap folder). A research log will help to ensure you go over the same ground, and can help you to keep orientated with the exact location of important details. Invest in a label printer to avoid smudgy, scribbled or unclear labelling; you’re going to be doing a lot of it.
Think slides: Being the medium preferable to many during the twentieth century, slides are a great resource for family history research, mainly due to the sheer quantity of them you are likely to find. Get hold of a slide duplicator (an inexpensive tool), upload your slides and print them directly into an album of your own. You can not only give the originals back, but you can also dispose of the home projector room every time you want to see the pictures bigger than a thumbnail in size.
The Power of the Reminder: Researching your family history is about uncovering the inner story of your family as well as its origins. With living elderly relatives, you can often spark a forgotten memory by producing an old photograph, the details to which they can then provide you with. This is of course incredibly diplomatic, as the research becomes a more shared discovery, and you’ll no doubt please the relative in question by casting back into their younger days with such interest. Therefore, make sure your photographs are accessible and not just sitting in a file on your computer.
Remember the fax: In contacting relatives abroad, you may wish to consider the possibility of them reproducing documents by fax. People are understandably reluctant in sending away their loved ones’ irreplaceable documents, and it can therefore be difficult in securing their help. Asking for a fax copy, you are again leaving them with the originals, but you’re receiving proper copies of information vital to your research.
There are many things to think about in conducting your family history research, but concentrate on good practice most of all – forget lessons hard-learned; start off as you mean to go on by having to hand anything that can deepen your research, and subsequently any means of storing and using your findings quickly and easily. Ensure you use a printer to document all the important information you find during your research.
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