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Getting Organized - Part 1 - Knowing What You Know - Page 2

© Mark W. Swarthout

Almost as important as knowing the information is knowing where it came from. Was it your memory? Newspaper article or obituary? Quoting Great Aunt Agatha? Most of us know what our parent's names were, or at least think we know! I've seen sisters fighting over what their brother's name really was! The interesting thing was that there was official documentation supporting each of the possibilities.

The Family Bible
Is there a family record sections with pages designed to record births, baptisms, marriages and deaths? Check the copyright or publish date and compare it to the recorded information. Were the blanks filled in after the fact? Compare handwriting and ink to see if the first entries were all made at the same time and by the same person. Often other key papers were stored in the Bible. These might include certificates for Sunday school attendance, Baptisms, and awards. Obituaries and death announcements were often used as bookmarks and remembrances.

Family Legend
Every family has stories about their ancestors handed down from generation to generation. Some of them may even be true! There was the 5Great grandfather who fought in the Revolution and the Great Great Grandmother who was a Cherokee princess.

Family Trees
Chances are that you are not the first person in your family that has started tracing this information. You may have a copy of the DAR application your aunt submitted fifty years ago. Or you may, like me, have written down a lot of information while at a family picnic, using the only paper you could get, yes, paper plates! You may have even written notes while helping your child create that obligatory third grade family tree for school.

Organizing the information that you already know is the best place to start. This will allow you to see what holes exist in your information, as well as allowing you to know what items to look for. Future articles will look at software available for computerizing your information and tools that help make life easier when traveling to do research.

Checklist
A quick checklist of the very basic information you should try to obtain whenever possible:

Birth Date

Location of Birth - City, Township, County, State and Country

Marriage Date

Location of Marriage - City, Township, County, State and Country

Name of Spouse(s)

Name of Child(ren)

Any places an individual may have lived

Death Date

Location of Death - City, Township, County, State and Country

Location of Burial - City, Township, County, State and Country

Acquiring any of these items can go a long way toward finding out the other items about the individual.

The copyright of the article Getting Organized - Part 1 - Knowing What You Know - Page 2 in North American Genealogy is owned by Mark W. Swarthout. Permission to republish Getting Organized - Part 1 - Knowing What You Know - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.