Family history, hobby, obsession or profession

The great thing about family history is that there is something for all levels. If you have plenty of time so much the better but if you don’t, you can still achieve a lot by being organized and focused in your family history research. One way to progress if you have limited time is to create a family history plan to motivate you. It’s really just your commitment to yourself that you will try and achieve certain things by a certain date.

The backs of photos as sources of family history

Try asking various family members to gather family photo albums out check for information including, names, dates and places where your ancestors may have been. You never know what family history you might find on the back of an old photo. This can provide you with a new route for your family history investigations

The basics of Birth records for family history part 2

Birth records are very important to family historians but recent birth records are more difficult to obtain because privacy law often prohibits the public release of such information until it can be confirmed that individuals died or such time has passed that it is not possible for them to still be living. One thing to look out for when you are using birth records for family history is that there are usually three types; original records that are unchanged and were registered at the time of birth, amended birth records which have been modified, corrected or have new family history information added, and Postponed or delayed – These represent family history records that were issued some time after the birth event as the certificate was not created or registered at that time.

Sourcing and citing family history records

The family history comments and citations log in the tab of each family member should contain key information. Later on in your family history research you may decide to share your data or even publish your work and you’ll need to know your sources for obtaining and verifying the information within your family history lines. Showing the basics like name, birth, death, married, spouse is great but for example if you found the persons birth certificate show the date you found it, birth certificate number, the source, quoting file numbers, source name and addresses, authors, titles, pages and publishers.