Excellent writers use active voice in all types of writing because it cuts down on wordiness, enlivens the writing by avoiding a stuffy tone, and creates more energy. In genealogical writing, an active voice is hard to achieve since we, as genealogists, often write in the third person point of view, and we usually write …
Creating Full-Text Search Source Citations for Genealogy
The introduction of Full-Text Search at FamilySearch has been incredibly exciting! I’m thrilled to dive back into my research projects with renewed optimism that this feature will help me overcome some of my stubborn brickwalls. The collection started with U.S. Land and Probate and Mexico Notarial Records. It now includes Australia Land and Probate Records, …
Continue reading “Creating Full-Text Search Source Citations for Genealogy”
Research Like a Pro: Research Planning
The RLP Week #5 research planning assignment felt very satisfying to me as I compiled the elements from previous assignments into my research plan. My husband and I were on a family history trip for over a week, so I went to the FamilySearch Library the day before we left. I wouldn’t be able to …
Research Like a Pro: Locality Research
Locality research is all about gaining knowledge of the region, its history, geography, laws, customs, and repositories. It’s also essential to collect links to online record sets and information about offline record sets. We gather all of this important information into a locality research guide, also called a research reference guide or a quick reference …
Research Like a Pro: Source Analysis
Overview of Source Analysis The Source Analysis step in the Research Like a Pro (RLP) process entails evaluating the reliability of the sources, their information (or the informant), and the evidence created. Source analysis helps us correlate our research findings and make solid conclusions. Here are the three essential components of source analysis. SOURCES The …
Research Like a Pro: Creating a Genealogy Timeline in Airtable & Creating Citation Templates
In Research Like a Pro this week, we learned about creating a genealogy timeline in Airtable for the Source Analysis step and about the Source Citations step. As a reminder, here are the elements of the Research Like a Pro process Timelines Building a genealogy timeline is a fantastic way to analyze known information and …
Research Like a Pro Study Group: Setting a Genealogy Research Objective
I’m so excited to be a peer group leader in Family Locket’s Research Like a Pro Study Group this fall. I’m carving out time to work on a long-standing brick wall on my husband’s line. His 5th great-grandfather, John Stokes (GQKY-8MT) was born about 1778, possibly in Lunenburg, Virginia. During the study group, I’m hoping …
Continue reading “Research Like a Pro Study Group: Setting a Genealogy Research Objective”
Source Citations: Punctuation Basics
Using Proper Punctuation in Genealogical Source Citations Punctuation conventions such as italics, parentheses, quotations marks, semicolons, and colons add meaning to a citation and shouldn’t be used haphazardly. Let’s review some essential punctuation rules to keep in mind when writing a genealogy source citation. Knowing and understanding these rules will add credibility and professionalism to …
Master Citation Template Part 2: Access Information
My previous blog post covered an overview of the “Source Information” section or Part 1 of my master template. To start at the beginning of this blog series, please start with the post Genealogy Source Citations Simplified. Now let’s discuss the “Access Information” or Part 2 of my master template. This section answers questions about …
Continue reading “Master Citation Template Part 2: Access Information”
Master Citation Template Part 1: Source Information
To start at the beginning of this blog series, please start with the first post Genealogy Source Citations Simplified. In last week’s blog post, I covered the importance of creating a master citation template as a basis for all record-type templates. This process ensures that: 1) Your citations will be consistent 2) Creating each unique …
Continue reading “Master Citation Template Part 1: Source Information “