Logging the Family History - Why Documentation Is Important
Once you've begun the process of researching your
family history, you've probably also begun the long practice of writing
your family story. The family story is a concise, logical document that
can help others to view your research in a reader-friendly format. It can
help them become truly interested in the research that you have done. One
of the most important aspects of any family story, though, is the
documentation of sources.
Most people believe that because they have no intention of publishing
their work or submitting it to anyone besides family members in any way
that the sources do not need to be documented. However, documentation is
essential for a number of different reasons. First, documentation can make
your research go smoother. By that, I mean the research can be both easier
and faster through the process of documentation, because most people do
their genealogy research in little bits. As a result, it can make it go
smoother if you log where you got certain bits of information. That way
you can go back to the source if you require more information at a future
date. Proper documentation can also help you and others from completing
duplicate research. If you document your sources, someone who decides to
build on your research in the future will know which sources have and have
not been used. Likewise, it is a huge time-saver for you if you know which
sources the research you are building on was written with. You don't have
to consult sources that will take you in circles.
Another reason to use proper documentation is to help others have a bit of
confidence in your research. Many people have found that they have to
correct certain family legends as their ancestral research begins.
Documentation can help those who come after you to realize that you have
done your homework; in other words, none of what you have written is
subject to the family legends and lore of the past. Moreover, you will
want to have proof of your research in case you ever decide to publish
your findings or in case you ever need to contact a professional
researcher. One final reason to document your research is because it is
not a difficult process. When most people think of documentation, they
think back to their school days with footnotes, end notes, works cited
pages, and extensive bibliographies. While there is a proper format, which
we will discuss next, the truth of the matter is that you only need to
leave enough information for others to tell where your source material
came from. For example, you might want to record something like 1850
census, DeKalb County, Missouri, page 291.
While that type of entry may be adequate, it is only a
bare minimum entry. If you want to be a bit more thorough, or you intend
to publish your findings, there is a basic citation format that will be
very important to your work. Try this order: author, article title,
publication title, publisher place, publisher name, year published, page
numbers. With this format, you can list up to three authors. If the work
you are dealing with has more than three, list the first author and add
"et al" to the entry. You will want to list both the article
title and the book title if you are dealing with an anthology type text.
This can help people discover exactly what you were looking at within that
text. Put your article title in quotation marks, and place your text title
in italics. The information about the publisher is the most extensive for
a number of reasons. First, most publishing houses have more than one
location, and if they have produced similar books, it can be hard to
figure out which publisher you are trying to deal with. Second, publishing
houses come and go frequently. As a result, it can be hard to locate a
publisher after they have left their business. The final bit of this entry
is the page number or numbers, as the case may be. This can be immensely
helpful to the next research, as they will not have to sift through the
mountain of text you had to.
Documentation can be very important to your research. If you don't want to
document, consider documenting for those who will inevitably come after
you.
About the Authors
Paul Duxbury and Kevin Cook own www.amateur-genealogist.com and
www.our-family-trees.co.uk two of the leading Genealogy Websites. In
addition Paul owns a wide range of exciting websites which can be viewed
at www.paulduxbury.com
