Talking With the Public About Family History

Again we are very fortunate to have an article written by Ralph and Linda Miller, Area FH Advisers in New England.  We thank them for sharing

Family history is one of the most popular hobbies there is, and the church’s contributions toward family history research are well known.  However, we are not using family history to create missionary opportunities as much as we could. What could we do better? Here are some of our thoughts.

 

When the members of the public are engaged in family history, it is a win-win-win.  As they learn more about their ancestors, they feel the Spirit of Elijah, which is the Holy Ghost.  As they gather identifying information, it becomes available for potential submission for temple ordinances.  As they learn more about their ancestors characters and accomplishments, important lessons are gathered which help them better face life’s challenges.  As they learn more about the church’s interest in building eternal families, they may wish to find out more about the church and its doctrines.

Too often, we miss some of the most important opportunities associated with family history.  Or in an effort to save time for our nonmember friends, we deny them the excitement of discovery.

Why family history?  We often begin presentations about LDS resources by reading Malachi 4:5-6 as a basis for LDS interest in family history.  We explain that turning “the heart of the children to their fathers” is tracing your ancestors, and “the heart of the fathers to the children” is recording our own personal history and keeping journals.  Besides explaining the importance of family history, this reaffirms our belief in the Bible as scripture.

People are interested in stories and interesting facts.  Sometimes we think more is better, so we rush to gather names, dates and places, without bothering to learn much about the individuals.  If you’ve watched some of ancestry.com’s commercials lately, you’ve seen that what they think is most exciting are seemingly minor facts like occupation or address.  People were more interested in knowing that an aunt lived in a building just a couple blocks away, or that their grandfather was the first doctor in town.

Help people discover facts – perhaps their occupation, where they lived, or interesting stories.  These bring the people to life – much more than a chart full of names, dates and places. Working from those facts, see what more you can help them discover.  This may be a different approach than the LDS name-identifying, but it appeals to those who really want to understand their ancestors.

People feel the Holy Ghost when they research their families, and it is a good feeling.  In our efforts to interest people in family history, we may offer to do research for them – saving time but stealing the thrill.  Rather than doing the work for them, sit down together and show them some actual documents, such as census record or birth, marriage and death certificate.  Show them the additional clues the document provides.  Let them be the explorer.

As they discover clues about an ancestor’s identify, their hearts turn and they feel the Holy Ghost confirm the eternal nature of families – that this person is truly part of them.  Don’t skip this important step.

Methodology is less interesting than people.  If you plan a family-history-oriented event for the general public, emphasize families, individuals and relationships more than research methodology.  Experts find research strategies or resources interesting, but most people do not.  They don’t want to become experts – they just want to learn more about their family.  Save technical topics for classes for advanced researchers.

One of the opportunities many LDS researchers miss is talking with relatives.  While genealogists are more comfortable in quiet archives, the real heart-turning comes when you are face-to-face with someone who can tell you about his or her life and relatives.  Spend time in meaningful conversation rather than just gathering facts in quiet solitude.

Listen, listen, listen.  As Steve Covey says, seek first to understand than to be understood.  People aren’t going to listen if they don’t think you understand what they are interested in.  When talking with someone about family history, ask questions to discover what they are really interested in.  Don’t have your explanations planned in advance. What do they want?  Do they want to know about their heritage, or are there certain family members they really feel drawn to?  Do they miss someone who has passed on and want to preserve their memory somehow?  Would the idea of eternal marriage or eternal family relationships be something they are interested in right now?

Keeping up with FamilySearch Family Tree and Other FamilySearch Products

Interested in the FamilySearch Family Tree or other FamilySearch products?  Want to learn more about it?  Want to keep up with the changes?  Do you want to give Feedback or Input into changes?

To learn about FamilySearch Family Tree go to the Help Centre at FamilySearch.org and scroll down to the section on Family Tree.  Several resources are there including instructions on how to get access, and a video.

The user guide is entitled “Using the FamilySearch Family Tree.”  This is a work in progress.  It is not complete – so we strongly recommend that you not print the document (available as a pdf) – try to study it online – use keyword searches – or the chapter headings and page numbers to help you navigate.

How do we tell when there has been an update to Family Tree?  Look at the date on the cover of the user guide – it changes when changes are made!  Most recent changes have been in Chapter 8 on Sources – an important chapter.

You may also be very interested in Appendix C in the user guide that offers a feature comparison between Family Tree and new FamilySearch.

There is a link in the Help Centre to Release Notes.  These do not seem to be as up to date at the date on the user guide!

Your input and feedback is very important – so please send comments and questions to FamilySearch Support.

Get Satisfaction is the name of the Feedback tool used by FamilySearch.  It is very helpful to explore this tool and learn how to use it as it covers all FamilySearch products and not just Family Tree.  Here is how to access it:  1.  Click on Feedback in the Help Centre (upper right side) – don’t be signed in when you do this – or you will have to navigate through 2 additional screens  2.  Click on the link to Share an Idea – and you go to a section entitled Ideas from the Community to Improve FamilySearch – has interesting material!  3. On the right scroll down the list of Products and Services, click on the link See All Products and Services, and then select Family Tree from the next screen to see discussions on Family Tree – often with replies from the product developers.  This is an interesting tool to learn about any of the FamilySearch products!

Don’t feel that you have to use Family Tree at this time. You can still continue to use nFS and wait until FT is more complete.

 

Ward Activity for Genealogy

by guest author

Sue Maxwell

(Sue always has interesting articles on her blog - http://granitegenealogy.blogspot.ca/ )

I thought I would share a ward activity we held last week. Our Bishop  feels strongly that a ward activity is just that — for the ward,  including children. I put together a round robin of classes on Saturday beginning at 5:30 pm. That’s important because of the children.

I had 5 stops and each stop was in a different room at the church. I  made rotating handouts so that we could start everyone at the same time but in different rooms. I tried to focus the families with small children into the (1) “food” room first and then move on from there. I had a class on indexing (2), one on using the Fan Chart and new FamilySearch (3), one on Involving children in genealogy (4), and one on the “gathering” portion of family history (5) (unique ways of gathering information from family and building your story). We only had 20 minutes each – so about 15 minutes in each class with a few minutes to change rooms. Two of the classes were taught by our YM and YW who I had been working with.

In every room I had a table in the back of the room with activities for the children of the parents who were attending the class. This kept the families together but the children were occupied. I also used YW to teach the various games in each room.

Our Primary President put together and taught the class on “involving children in genealogy” and also put together the activities for each room. All of them were family history related in some way. For example, one of the activities for the children was looking for things in the Where’s Waldo books. As each child found what they were looking for, she gave them a census record and had them look for a name. It was so fun. In her room she used the object lesson of brushing your hair without bending your arm at the elbow. This taught the children about using a proxy to get the job done.

What surprised me the most was the families that attended were mostly the young families with children! And they had the best things to say. They were so exciting to be able to learn about family history without having to worry about their children or chase them around. The whole activity was over in about 90 minutes. And the adults were so impressed that the youth were teaching.

The bishop later told me that he went home and discussed the activity with his children and he was so surprised at all the concepts they learned. Great activity.

New Blog + Billion Graves + Spring Handout

This week’s article has 3 parts!

1. We want to announce a new blog!  pfhn.wordpress.com or http://pfhn.wordpress.com/ Why?  To provide a place to post the latest versions of handouts for Family History – I just don’t like the idea of people going home from a presentation and typing in urls from a paper handout , and focus on FH articles for the public.  So peterfh.wordpress.com remains for FH Consultants and lds topics, and pfhn.wordpress.com is for public articles and particularly handouts. You are welcome to sign up for the new blog!  Your comments and articles are welcome!
2. Did you get the FH Consultant Newsletter from FamilySearch on 27 April?  Hope so – or it means that either you haven’t registered at familysearch.org/serve aka https://www.familysearch.org/consultant/  yet or that your email program moved the message into the spam or trash file!  Did you notice the interesting news that Billion Graves data will be part of FamilySearch as of 1 May 2012?  Not familiar with Billion Graves?  Their website is http://billiongraves.com/ .  They are trying to add 1 million records in the month of May.  There is also an article in the blog at FamilySearch.org https://www.familysearch.org/blog/billiongraves/   Billion Graves is a FamilySearch affiliate product (go to the link to Products at the bottom of the page at Familysearch.org and select Web)
3. Here is the latest version of the handout we have been using at our training sessions this Spring.

 

Stake Family HIstory Meetings April/May 2012

1. Our purpose: To follow the Spirit and empower members to identify their ancestors, link them into families, and ensure that temple ordinances are performed for them.

Process:  Ask, Find, Teach

Clarifying questions are very important. There are 5 main places to Find answers – (1). Learn at familysearch.org, (2). Help Centre at nFS and Help at familysearch, (3).  FHCentre Director, your fellow consultants, (4).  Telephone 1-866-406-1830 or email support@familysearch.org,  (5). Weekly articles at peterfh.wordpress.com .

1. Teach Temple policy – who we do work for – 110 year rule  – help everyone understand and follow Temple Policies – refer to page 30 in Member’s Guide – First Presidency letter 29 Feb – use the Tutorials and Guides from the Help panel or Learn How to use FamilySearch from the new FamilySearch home page – quote policy don’t interpret
2. Indexing on mobile devices – IOS and Android – in beta – app seems very stable – but work done is not being rolled up into Stake statistics yet – uses “snippets” – look for icon at top of screen to see page view (so can compare lettering)
3. Helping with LDS Account problems
   1. When registering – User name – keep short – minimum 4 characters
   2. Passwords – think of a word plus a number – minimum 8 characters including at least one number
   3. Contact name – use something meaningful e.g. first initial last name
   4. Forgot username and/or password – follow Forgot? on sign in page
   5. Forgot username but no or wrong email or not available to use email – click in box and use membership number and birthdate.
   6. How to sign in to help someone else – helper access numbers – where to find them – limitations on being a helper (e.g. no discussions available) – see kd 100546 – when do you use Sign in to Help Someone Else?
   7. Update email, change username, password and access # in Update My Profile and Preferences on welcome page of nFS
4. Update on FamilySearch.org – end of Previous site coming soon?
   1. Blog link – check periodically – includes news on changes
   2. Records – search wide – then narrow with filters
   3. Trees – new options – search PRF or AF or both
   4. Books – now moved to Familysearch servers so collection can grow – and it is already larger – full text access to family histories
   5. Learn – for Research Wiki, Research Courses, and Discussion Forums
   6. Catalog – still not final version
   7. Help – be aware of options
   8. Signing in makes a difference – e.g. more images available
   9. Future of the IGI – told it will be made available again in 2013 (??)
5. Building your tree on nFS
   1. Sign in – build your tree – combine duplicates – update Summary View – find relatives needing Temple work – move to temple list – print Family Ordinance Request (FOR)
   2. Are we making any progress with “mytreeitus”?
   3. FORs – how to email – beware of old FORs
6. Family Tree (FT) -  Demo of some of the features
   1. Dilemma – not complete product yet – so must still use nFS – will this be confusing?   will names be delayed going to the temple?  Should we be learning to use it or just be aware of it?
   2. For Help Learning FT – go to FamilySearch.org click on Help and scroll down to Family Tree Help – currently there are 5 resources there: Navigating the FamilySearch Family Tree (video), Navigating the FamilySearch Family Tree (pdf), Using the FamilySearch Family Tree (pdf), Gaining Access to the FamilySearch Family Tree (pdf), Release Notes (pdf)
   3. If you want to use FT you can have it – FamilySearch need people to give feedback during development – but be cautious about who tries it.  Providing feedback with good easy-to-follow examples can help the engineers to fix problems.  Go to FamilySearch.org, click on Help and scroll down to the section on Family Tree, click on Gaining Access to the FamilySearch Family Tree (pdf) to submit a request.   …If you have questions or comments, please go to http://getsatisfaction.com/familysearch/products/familysearch_family_tree_beta .   Note: This site is described as a “beta site” but uses live data, so please be careful. It is partly “read-only”, so changes sometimes need to be made in nFS to appear in FT.
7. Keeping your own file – feel stronger than ever that this is important to do if we can – what software to use? make sure you can move data to and from nFS without re-typing it.  See list through Products link at FamilySearch.org or link on right to software on sign in page for nFS
8.   Please read our weekly article – and submit suggestions for articles and even articles themselves.  We welcome your contributions. You can subscribe to automatically receive articles.  http://peterfh.wordpress.com/  Also public notes at http://pfhn.wordpress.com

Putting our FAMILY in Family History – The First Annual Raymond Stake “Family” Family History Fair

Last weekend we had the pleasure of attending and helping with the Raymond Stake Family History Fair.  We thought this was a very very successful event which other stakes might want to try.  The Raymond Stake has been kind enough to share their plan with us.  About 150 people attended the Fireside and over 160 people attended the classes on Saturday.  The lunch of soup, whole wheat bread, cookies, and apple crumble (made from dried apples) was delicious.  Obviously a lot of planning and preparation went into the event and we have included some of the outlines. Another element that made the event so successful was the large number of presenters and helpers from organizations throughout the stake.   Congratulations Raymond Stake!

The following is an extract of their outline for the fair.  Please contact us if you need a complete copy of the outline and contact information for the FH leaders in the Raymond Stake.

On Friday evening, April 20^th and during the day, Saturday April 21^st, The Raymond Stake will host a Family History Fair, centered in Family History activities that we can do as families.

Our Goals

• Help our stake families to understand their ancestors and how they contribute to who and what we are today
• Provide family centered activities to help us learn about and enjoy our family backgrounds and history
• Show what is available and build interest within our Stake in family history and genealogy work

The Format

Our fair will be in two parts. It will begin with a family fireside on Friday evening at 7:00 pm at the Stake Center Chapel. Peter & Linda Darby, our Area Family History Advisors, will be the speakers. During the day Saturday we will host a “drop in” smorgasbord of family centered Family History activities at the Stake Centre and Cultural Hall. This will begin at 9 am and continue till around 4:30 pm. Attendees will be able to choose from a range of concurrent activities, classes, displays and programs, each one repeating 6 times, at 9:30, 10:30, 11:30, 1:30, 2:30, and 3:30. Some of the activities may require a previous signup with designated times for attending. Others will be “free form” and “drop in”. All will be designed for entire families to participate in. Each will take about 45 minutes, and allow 5 to 10 minutes for questions after, and 5 minutes to move the group out and a new one in. Lunch will be provided in the Cultural Hall between 12:30 and 1:30 (the Stake Emergency Preparedness group will be handling this so it could be interesting as well as filling).

The planned activities and their coordinating/sponsoring High Priests groups are: 

#1 – Build Your Family Tree and put it on your mantle, save it for a rainy day. (1^st Ward)

#2 – How can I write a journal when I can’t even write a note? (4^th Ward)

#3 – Can I really learn anything useful from my grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles? (7^th Ward)

#4 – What is indexing and do I need a dictionary to do it? (5^th Ward)

#5 – What does our family stand for, how are we unique, and where did we get our family traditions, traits, habits, recipes and all these things that make us who we are? (3^rd Ward)

#6 – How were the lives of our ancestors different from ours, and how were they similar (9^th Ward)

#7 – What is this whole NewFamilySearch thing, why is it “new” and is my family really lost enough that I need to be searching for it? (8^th Ward)

#8 – I’ve got all these old photos and artifacts and stuff – are they good for anything and if so, how can I save and use them? (6^th Ward)

#9 – What’s at the Family History Centre and what can it do for my family? (2^nd Ward)

There will be two additional activities that are not repeating “classes” but will be more of a service booth approach:

#10 – “The Doctors are IN” – what FH problems can we help you solve? (Area FH Advisors)

#11 – Haven’t registered for new FamilySearch yet? – Here is your chance – (Stake Clerk and FHC Staff)

What’s next

We are working with the High Priest Group Leaders to define and refine the activities and help find ways to make them whole family experiences. Someone has been assigned to coordinate a publicity campaign and we will all keep reinforcing in a positive way that this is a “Family” Family History event. We also plan to have family history related displays in the Cultural Hall and North Stake Centre foyers, – posters, materials, some artifacts and such.

Please contact (member of HC or FHC Directors) with suggestions, feedback and ideas.

 

Putting our FAMILY in Family History – April 21, 2012

Activity #1 – Build Your Family Tree (and put it on your mantle) – First Ward

Message – Families are made of real people who are connected in ways we can understand

Activity Description – As a family, talk about what a family tree is. Families can make a physical family tree that can be taken home and displayed, and can also register and receive a fanchart printout showing 9 generations of their family ancestors.

Target Group – Families with younger children for the physical tree and any family for the fanchart

Coordinator – 1^st Ward High Priests

Possible assisting organization – Stake Primary people and ward people as needed

What we need

• A simple way that people can select pieces, put names on them and construct a tree form showing their family relationships
• Some posters and discussion points or illustrations about relationships, what they are called and how they fit together
• A computer and printer setup to load and print fancharts from the NewFamilySearch website

The Take-home – an individual family tree, a visual reminder of how and who makes up our family

 

Activity #3 – Can I really learn anything new or useful from my grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles? – Seventh Ward

Message – Our ancestors and their experiences can be a blessing to us, but only if we know who they are and what they did. We can find these things out by talking to them about their lives and keeping notes or a recording in some way

Activity Description – Examples of Q and A family firesides, possibly a church video on interviewing, ask some of the questions and get the answers, talk about recording with ink and ipods

Target Group – Families with living relatives (that’s most of us)

Coordinator – 7^th Ward High Priests

Possible assisting organization – Stake YW, YM

What we need

• Illustrations of things learned from our progenitors and family members
• An opportunity to interview someone about a specific event as a learning process
• Discussion and examples about ways to preserve an interview
• A real interview with a family member about some significant event – marriage, first child, mission

The Take-home – a better knowledge of a family event or member and an understanding of how to find out about other events that have meaning from our past

 

Activity #4 – What is indexing and do I need a dictionary to do it? – Fifth Ward

Message – Indexing can be fun and it blesses us all – it is a powerful way to help Family History efforts

Activity Description – A presentation/demonstration about indexing along with actual involvement in indexing records

Target Group – All, with some emphasis on the “gadgetized” youth

Coordinator – 5^th Ward High Priests

Possible assisting organization – Stake Indexing director

What we need

• A location with a computer or two, a large monitor or projector and internet access
• Some demonstrations and illustrations about  the Church indexing program and why it helps us
• Discussion about the youth site at LDS.Org/youth/family-history
• Demonstrations on a smartphone/iphone and/or a tablet
• Some fairly easy record sets to work with
• Those taking this class will need their membership number and birth date if they are not registered already

The Take-home – an understanding of indexing and its importance in family history work

 

Activity #9 – What is at the Family History Centre and what can it do for my family? – Second Ward

Message – Tools, resources and training for our research needs can be found at the FHC

Activity Description – Show what is available at the FHC and what help we can receive there

Target Group – all

Coordinator – 2^nd Ward High Priests

Possible assisting organization – Family History Directors

What we need

• Sample setups from the FHC, one computer workstation, one microfilm reader, one microfiche reader, internet
• A presentation/discussion about what you can do at home and what you can do at the Center
• Illustrations of ways the FHC can complement family research at home

The Take-home – an understanding of where a Family History centre can help a family in their Family History program.

 

 

 

Keynote Speakers at the AGS/AFHS Conference 2012

Congratulations to the Alberta Genealogical Society and Alberta Family History Society for the great conference they put on in Red Deer on April 13 and 14.  It was great to see the 2 organizations put on the conference together!  Over 250 people were in attendance.  You can get information on presentations including handouts by going to http://rdgensoc.ab.ca/conferenceindex.html  . To get any handouts (not all speakers had handouts) click on the link to Presenters and then click on the presenter’s name.

The 2 keynote speakers were Gena Ortega on the Friday evening and Dick Eastman on  Saturday morning.  They were both excellent. I know many of you couldn’t come so here are my notes from their presentations – certainly not comprehensive notes, but some of the things that caught my attention.  Apologies for any errors I am about to make!  Please don’t share my errors!

Gena Philibert-Ortega – Researching Like a History Detective

(Gena is an author and blogger from California.  Her blogs include  http://philibertfamily.blogspot.ca/   Gena serves as Vice-President for the Southern California Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists. She is also a Regional Director for the California State Genealogical Alliance).  Gena has a handout on the conference website.

Context is everything.  Without context we make assumptions – draw false conclusions – may research someone else’s family.  We tend to stick to government documents and don’t stray too far from it  – need to consider other sources.

What is context?  Set of circumstances that surround a particular event

PBS Show History Detectives

Genealogists are History Detectives

People in family tell us whacky stories – & we try to work it out

What do Detectives do?

Listen to witnesses – what they say and what they don’t say

Observe

Question experts

Gather evidence

Aha moment

What makes genealogy interesting ?

Not the forms

About going to cemeteries

Bringing ancestors to life

There is much more than Ancestry and FamilySearch websites

Analyzed some old picture

Enlarge – look for details – religious collar with SA on it

Look for unseen clues

Gather evidence from lots of people

Research Salvation Army

Use eBay – searched for vintage Salvation Army photos

Think like an historian

Find all the books you can about the locality

Genealogy is history on the micro level

Look for articles

Call reference librarians – maybe through a chat feature

Get past vital record, census, and surname searches

Don’t make assumptions

1911 England – person not in census? – suffragettes refused to be included in the census! What documents existed at this time period? History at that time? Neighbors?

Do you use library websites?  University websites? Worldcat? Repositories ?

Try to recreate the community your ancestor lived in

Libcat – guide to libraries on the internet – not just USA

Repositories of Primary Sources – google search term

Library and Archives Canada – archivianet and online maps

David Rumsey map collection – can also be an add on to Google Earth

Alberta Women’s Institute website – look at the Tweedsmuir Histories

Experts are important in genealogy

How do you find experts?

Social networking – such as genealogywise – ask questions

APG – Association of Professional Genealogists

Message boards

Books

Universities

Ask local historians

Google books – can be very good – to research a topic

Put in ancestors name

5 steps to research:

1. Research the individual – look at Internet genealogy databases – know sources – google person – identify primary documents – newspapers – home sources (inherited by others ) – family members – websites
2. Research the family
3. Research the history
4. Research the locality
5. Research the neighbors and community – how do you find neighbors? – research area – reconstruct community – manuscript collections

Get to know all the sources.

Look for finding aids, research books, how to books

Cluster genealogy – identifying and reconstructing a persons social network – increase the pool of people – FAN principle (Family, Associates and Neighbours – from Elizabeth Shown Mills) – Where they lived, occupations

Use Google images

Stories behind people create interest

Look at different kinds of collections

Search the catalog – special collections, digital collections – many times surnames as search terms won’t help you

Worldcat  http://www.worldcat.org/ – catalog of libraries – give it your postal code -and it will find library near you that has book – can copy citations and sources.  Search terms may not be what you think.  Cookbooks equal cookery in catalog.  Good to look at subject headings.

University libraries online – often have chat features or ask a librarian

Women’s collections

Be flexible in what you use as key words

PERSI valuable resource – available at ancestry.com – look for articles

Reconstructing lives

Context is everything

Genealogy is a puzzle

(interesting fact: US women until c 1936 who married non US males lost their citizenship)

Dick Eastman – The Family History World in 10 years time

(Owner and writer of  Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter and Blog – which I read every morning before breakfast!  You can find out how to subscribe to receive by email if you go to http://blog.eogn.com/ and click on subscribe to free standard edition.  Dick is from Florida – so he really appreciated our spring time snow!)

For handouts go to:  eogn.com/handouts/10years

Genealogy 0.5 – until c 1920 – original records – compiled sources – no microfilm – expensive – few societies – elitist

Genealogy 1.0 – 1920 – 1980 – microfilm – Alex Haley

Genealogy 2.0 – 1980- 2012 – digital records – social networks – TV shows – expanded audience

Genealogy 3.0 – 2012 and beyond – now – many records online – google books – see werelate.org – bloggers

The Future? – more records online – focus on putting images online – with transcripts and indexes – wifim (what’s in it for me) – dealing with inertia – genealogists interrupt bureaucrats real work? – archive email? Archive of Facebook – archives.org has a wayback machine

- online all the time everywhere – ease of access – information moving to the cloud – google glasses are coming

- new and better software – cloud based – comparing and matching records – collaborative – so more faster and easier – software that works on any platform – hardware OS is currently an impediment – data privacy issues?

- changing audience – getting younger! – busy family members can do genealogy in spare moments – driven by technology – TV programs – new audience has different interests such as stories of ancestors, not charts, may not join societies (not joiners) , not classified by age, gender or nationality – Boston University class 40% born a outside US, 90% had one or more grandparents born outside US – traditional data sources like census don’t work well – 50% non white – 50% did not share a surname with their own father – need global resources

Shane Robison VP HP at Rootstech 2011 said – desktop sales declining – tablet and smart phones soaring – within 5 years 60% of Internet access not from traditional computers

How is our society going to serve this audience?

Will traditional libraries cease to exist?  Will all books be digitized?  At what cost to access?

Share online!

Back it up!

Research Basics: Primary and Secondary Sources

(From the Monthly Newsletter published by Ralph and Linda Miller, Area Advisers in New England – we thank them for letting us use their article)

In family history research, we use a variety of sources to get information – people, books, internet, religious and government records.  All of these are “sources.”

Often we find conflicting information from different records.  Ages may vary – a little or a lot.  Name spellings may vary.  Sometimes the differences are slight; sometimes they are major – completely different names or places, for instance.  So which source is right?  What information do we select and what do we discard?

Sources are classified as primary and secondary sources.  Which type they are is determined by time – how soon after the event the record was made.  

Primary source documents are records made at or very near the time of the event.  Who made the record is not important – when it was made is the key factor.  A birth certificate, for example, is a primary record for date and place of birth and the name at birth.  A diary or letter could be a primary source – Susie had a baby last Tuesday, or I went to Harry’s funeral yesterday – both of these are primary source records for the event they describe.

Secondary source records are records that are made later.  This is all the other records not made at or very near the time of the event.  There is no specific amount of time that determines which kind the record is.

Most records are both primary and secondary source documents.  A birth record, as stated above, is primary for the name, date and place of birth, and the mother’s name and occupation..  However, it is secondary for the mother’s age and place of birth. A death record is primary for the date and place of death, and secondary for other information – the birth date, birth place, parents’ names, etc.

Secondary records aren’t bad – we depend on them.  Sometimes they are the only information we can get.  But when there are conflicts, evaluate the sources to determine which is most reliable.

Government records are not necessarily more or less reliable than personal records like journals or letters.  Again, it comes down to how close to the event the record was made.  A letter that says “I went to Harry’s funeral yesterday” is a better source than even Harry’s headstone.

Likewise, a story from a letter describing an incident (such as a battle in a war) may be more accurate than a regimental history of the same incident written many years later.

Census records are always secondary records.  They are good, but they are simply a record of what the enumerator was told about who lived in the house.  They are very useful, but they are not primary for proper name, age or birth date, or place of birth.  Still, they give a lot of information and sometimes are the only source available to us (vital records may not have been kept then).

Likewise, books are always secondary sources.  They may contain information gathered from primary sources (or they may not), but they are secondary records.  Internet sites with compiled genealogies are secondary sources.  Even if they name the source they used, they are still secondary sources for you.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them,  just understand that they aren’t primary.

What records are acceptable sources for temple ordinances?  We are asked to find the best information we can.  If a better source is easily available, we should use it, but we do not need to rely only on primary sources – because many times they do not exist.  New FamilySearch uses relationships as well as dates and places to identify someone.  If Harry was John and Susie’s son, it is clear which Harry we are talking about, even if the birth date is a year or two off (Harry would probably appreciate that).

What if you find better information after an ordinance has been performed?  You can always update the record in New FamilySearch, using either the “edit” feature on the detail view (if you submitted the information you want to change), or adding corrected information in the “summary” view (if someone else submitted the information you want to correct).  You also can add notes to clarify, and you should enter the source with enough detail that someone else can evaluate your source.

Ordinances are valid even if dates, spellings or places are incorrect.  Never re-submit a name for ordinances if the ordinance was done for the person but the date or place was wrong.