The Research Process

A family history research process is a set of basic steps that will enable you to find your ancestors, document their information, and perform their temple work. Family historians and genealogists of all levels, from novice to professional, should follow a research process to help them be more efficient and effective in their efforts. While there are variations of the research process, they all contain the same basic principles.

When a client hires a professional genealogist, the client has a particular question they would like answered. This is called a research goal. The client then presents the information that is already known. The genealogist analyzes the known information and makes a plan to achieve the goal. After gathering and analyzing new information for the contracted amount of time, the genealogist reports back to the client with the results of their research.

When you are working on your own family history, the process you use will be very similar; however, the steps are in a slightly different order.

The research process used in this course is comprised of the following six steps:

1. Gather Known Information

Begin by gathering ancestral information provided by family members or other sources. For example, a family member might give you a copy of your great-great-uncle's journal entry with details of his US Civil War service; or you might find your entire four-generation pedigree on FamilySearch.org.

Please understand, it is imperative that you never accept anyone else's information or research as fact without first analyzing it and verifying it is correct. You will learn about analyzing information later in the research process.

2. Identify a Research Goal

Set specific, attainable research goals that will help you move forward with your family history work. Without a specific research goal, you cannot focus your research or visualize your progress. To identify a research goal, look for any gaps or holes in your pedigree or any inaccurate or unverified information.

Choose one ancestor to focus on. Then decide what you want to learn about that ancestor. For example, do you want to verify a specific name, date, or place on your pedigree chart? Or do you want to learn new information such as where an ancestor was born or died, when someone was married, or the names of an ancestor's children or parents? To increase the chance of success, focus your research goal on one question or event at a time and include pertinent details. For example, a research goal of, "Find the marriage," is not as effective as, "Find the marriage of Paul Renz and Martha Kroll, who, based on census records were most likely married in Youngstown, Mahoning, Ohio, in about 1914."

3. Develop a Plan

A plan puts your research goal into action by outlining the specific steps you will take to conduct new research. Developing a plan will orient your research and keep you from becoming distracted. Your plan should include the location(s) you will search as well as which types of records you would like to locate. As you become more experienced, you will learn which types of records tend to answer which types of research questions. These records may include birth, marriage, and death certificates; immigration and naturalization records; military records; probate records; obituaries; land deeds; and census records. The records you seek may be stored in a variety of places and may not always be readily available to you. Searching online first can help you determine whether you need to research offline as well.

4. Find New Information

Once you have developed a plan, follow it to find the information you need. When conducting research online, you may need to alter or filter your search to make your research more effective. For example, you may need to search for a birth within a range of years rather than only search for a specific year, or you may need to search for multiple spellings of your ancestor's name. You may need to refer to a website's help articles in order to perform effective searches on a particular website.

5. Analyze New Information

Each time you find new information, you must analyze your findings before accepting them as fact. Ask yourself questions like:

• Is this an original document, or is it an index or transcription? For example, a birth record is more reliable than a birth index because an index or transcription could contain errors.
• Did the person who reported or recorded the information have firsthand knowledge of the event? For example, a birth date reported by a person's parent is more reliable than one reported by a person's spouse because the parent was present for the event while the spouse was not.
• Does the information in the document directly state a fact or is it only inferred? For example, in determining residency, a death record that states the person's last residence would be more reliable than a death record that does not. However, since most people die near their place of residence, it can be inferred that the place of death listed was also the person's last residence.
• Was the record created near the time of the event or much later? For example, in determining a birth date, a birth record would be more reliable than birth information listed on a death record because the birth record was created nearer to the time of the birth.
• Does the document contain other noticeable errors? For example, there may be conflicting dates or duplicates on the document, or the recorder might have recorded information in an incorrect location on the document.
• Would the person who gave the information have a stronger motive to lie or to be accurate? For example, many people could lie about their marriage date in order to cover up an event such as a child born out of wedlock, but someone who is applying for a pension would choose to be extremely accurate in their application to ensure they receive the proper pension amount.

Review these concepts regularly so that analyzing your research findings becomes ingrained in your research process.

6. Record and Use New Information

After analyzing your research, you are ready to record the information. Remember the following principles in recording information:

• A female's maiden name should be recorded
• Dates should be in the order of day-month-year, and the year should be recorded as four digits. For example, 16 May 1864
• Places should be recorded from smallest geographical area to largest, such as City, County, State, Country. For example, Rexburg, Madison, Idaho, United States
• Places should be recorded as they existed at the time of the event

At first, you may not always notice and record every piece of pertinent information included in each record you find, but with practice you will quickly improve your ability to notice the subtle details contained in a record.

Along with recording the information you find, you should also:

• Cite your sources. This means you must state where you found your information. There are general rules you should follow when citing a source, and there are style guides you can refer to for assistance. At the minimum, your citation must include enough information for someone else to quickly find the source.
• Track your research through well-organized notes or a research log. If your research plan is written in a document with space for additional notes, that would be an excellent location to record your results. Additionally, your research log should include some of the information you will need for your citations.

Once you have recorded your analyzed information, you are prepared to use your research to help your ancestors receive saving ordinances. This entire research process is meant to help you find correct information about your ancestors so you can accurately perform proxy work for them in the temple of the Lord.