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An important part of family history research is organization. As you progress with building your family history you can find yourself with so much paperwork that you are lost. For each person make a life archive entry, in the family history comments for each life archive make a note of where you obtained your information and Research. Add outstanding questions you might have on this person along with a checklist. Remember to document everything you find on your about family history as you go. arcalife is a great tool to help you keep your family history organized.
When hiring a family history expert it’s a good idea to get references from people who know the persons work or pick someone who has well know family history qualifications like the IHGS or membership of the history society. If you are paying for your family history its worth setting out to the person you are hiring what you are trying to achieve. Do you want to search back through your family line, look laterally for living family members, flesh out the history of a specific family member or explore a particular side of your family history first.
The Arizona Department of Health Services is a great family history resource it is a free database and includes the original digital verified versions of birth and death certificates that are publicly available in Arizona. The database goes back from 50 years ago for Deaths and 75 years ago for birth, to protect the privacy of individuals.
Post your information including the family histories you are looking for on our history discussion forum. Family historians get together at the forum to discuss research methods and exchange material. You may get lucky and find missing family member or family history artifact. You don’t have much to lose from posting in many places and seeing what you can turn up but be careful what you post. It’s best not to post your home address or home phone online on open forums. If you want you can exchange further details using the secure arcalife message centre.