There’s a lot to learn in the field of family history and genealogy, a lot. And technology has and is changing practices, standards, everything at lightning fast speed. (2016) Three things I keep in mind:
- there’s no standard, for anything except the 1996 GEDcom
- language and vocabulary are sometimes puffed up and pretentious requiring definitions.
- family history has only recently been available via the internet, this is for everyone, large sums of money and time not required.
(2017) And another: of all the facts I collect gender and race are the least useful, providing the least actual information, insight, or life story threads, unless in social contexts. Example: Women in 1900 couldn’t vote, not because of an actual, given physical or mental quality but because society accepted this.
(2018) Another: There is a certain huge advantage included in researching white European ancestors in early America. I am extraordinarily lucky that so much was recorded in vital records and family history books.
Helpful citation idea: At Evidence Explained Elizabeth Shown Mills’s website, Mills compares citations to road maps. Citations help us get back to the source. Citations provide specific directions. Specific doesn’t mean complex. There are a million genealogy rules for citing sources with only one that is 100%: be clear.
Each life has its place 