There have been times, when I have embarked on family history research, that I will admit that I've just been too narrow in my thinking. I guess that I have concentrated too much on details that I believed to be correct about my ancestor. The sort of thing I mean is knowing how to spell their name and so not being open to variations. another mistake is to only look in a particular town or area in a blinkered way. When we family history researchers make these sort of mistakes then we are inviting grief and a whole lot of wasted time. We may well have been searching in the correct place but were we searching in the right or wrong way? My submission is that we just need to open up our minds to doing research in a smarter way and then we will often gain the reward of finding the data that we are searching.
I urge you to consider how your web-based research could perhaps gain in its quality if you always:
> keep handy a list of the known surname variants for your ancestor's name (e.g. in my own tree there is Thorn, Thorne, Stephens, Stevens and a huge variation in the spelling of Sissill.)
> think about what common first-name nicknames may apply and also any regularly used shortened forms of names. For example Thomas may be written as Thos. Elizabeth as Eliz. or Eliza. and I have found a John as Jono.
> have written down some of the capital letters that can easily be confused like J and I, for example
> remember that place names can be confused - in my Devon branch there are two Galmptons very near each other and I jumped to the conclusion that my great grandmother came from the one near to where they lived. Wrong!
> keep in mind the typical length of a person's life-span and don't end up pursuing someone with a similar name thinking they are one and the same. Then there are the ranges of dates for ancestor's weddings, deaths and the births or baptisms of their children?
> keep detailed research logs as you work and so avoid repeating searches already done at earlier stages.
> remain conscious that gaps can occur in whatever data sets. If you are searching a particular period and can't find an ancestor and this time frame also matches a known gap in the data, then this will stop you wasting more time than necessary looking.
So if you memorize these seven ways for avoiding family-tree research pitfalls, you may be able to miss out on the errors that I made in the past!
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Nick Thorne, AKA: The Nosey Genealogist, gives you the secret tips and tricks, learnt from professional genealogists, so that you can smash through your brick-walls in family history. Nick provides reports, podcasts and screencast videos to help you succeed in your on-line search for your ancestors. Want to learn more about Beginning Family History On-line? Claim Nick's free weekly tips and tricks, available
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