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General Genealogy Overview

Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2023 10:52 am
by Sara
Most of the time when researching your families, you find information which has been provided by others. This information can be found as notes left at your genealogical or historical society or library, published information which was taken from other records, (such as church or cemetery records), or actual published genealogies. All of this information is valuable, although care must be taken in accepting some of this data.


Primary sources are those, which are recorded closest to the actual event. These include birth, baptismal, marriage or death dates recorded in church records at the event, names and residence as recorded in the census or tax records, living heirs as recorded in a will, and the like. Basically, secondary sources are everything else. When doing genealogy, as many primary sources as can be found must be used for accuracy. Often, the primary sources will dispute or correct a secondary source.


The care which must be taken when viewing any information is: what is its source? “Good” information from a file at your historical society or that great published genealogy on your family that you just found is one which has been cited. Where did the researcher find that piece of information which tied your branch of the family into that “famous” one?


Did the compiler cite his or her sources? Can you trace his or her steps back to that same piece of data? If those questions can not be answered, then you must try to locate the sources yourself. Only use that research as a guide for you to follow to the primary or the best secondary source possible.

Genealogy can be a chore! After years and years of research and brakeless with certain ancestors, it can be east to make an assumption to tie everything together. This assumption may be a correct one, but without that documented proof, you may be led down the wrong path and to an incorrect lineage! That is why sources are so important!

Many of the county histories were written at least 100 years ago. There was not as much information available to these researchers at that time for specific persons as there is now. Assumptions were made and have now been passed down for many generations. These writers’ compilers and editors did their best with the information they had – but now we can locate more data to either support or dispute their findings. And don’t be afraid to dispute it, if it is well documented!

You must also take care with various published records, like church records, cemetery listings and even ship lists. If you view photocopies of originals, you are in luck. Then you can read the original handwriting and make your own determination of spellings, dates, etc.

If these have been transcribed, an error could have been made. You can still use the information, but if you find something different later on, then you must try to find the original to verify the name or date. If you’ve documented where you found the original or a transcription, then you will know which document or book you must look at.

Published genealogies may have the same problem. The older ones, especially those found from the early part of the century and before, will seldom have even a bibliography. You have probably noticed that few are even indexed. Again, the authors did their best to write about the family, but the sources are what is important for the detail found within. Even though you may*know* that this is your family, if you plan on passing your information along to future generations, the best thing you can do is attempt to document it, even to the point of rewriting the publication to include those citings.

It is very important that we, as family historians, pass along as much information to others as we can – not just the names and dates, but also where we found the data. If you are unfamiliar with how to cite sources, check at your local library to find a good handbook for properly using footnotes and bibliographies.

Published U.S. Legacies November 2002