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Tuesday’s Tip: Elizabeth Shown Mills’ FAN Principle

By not mentioned [FAL], via Wikimedia Commons

By not mentioned [FAL], via Wikimedia Commons

MANY of us have that one brick wall that really just… irritates us. Well not irritates, but frustrates us because we can’t seem to figure out parentage, for example, on that person – or any family for that matter! There can be a variety of reasons for this to happen – the census records where the ancestor was living with his parents wouldn’t list everyone’s names, by the time you have records for him he’s already married with children, he has a very common name, etc.

So what do you do?

One principle that Elizabeth Shown Mills has created is called the FAN principle, or the FAN club, or cluster research. FAN stands for friends, associates, and neighbors, and the acronym makes it easier to remember, so I prefer that name. The idea here is to broaden your research scope to those whom your ancestor associated with on a daily basis. Who were his neighbors? Were they always his neighbors? Using census records, were there any families that moved with him or stayed nearby? Whom did he sell land to? Or buy land from? What about church associates? Colleagues? His children’s spouse’s family? Who were the witnesses to his marriage(s) or baptisms for his children? Did his children ever live with other people before getting married?

This goes beyond just searching for those with the same surname in the county and surrounding counties of your ancestor (but that is also a good idea)! It gives you a much wider picture of your ancestor’s life. The FAN principle is also EXCELLENT when documents you want/need have been destroyed or just don’t seem to exist. By using indirect and negative evidence like this, you can come up with a soundly researched, coherently written conclusion for a proof argument.

For more reading on using this principle, check out these resources:

Have you used the FAN principle before? Leave comments/questions below about your experience!

 

Happy hunting!

Tuesday’s Tip: Use a Research Plan

How to do you plan and prep to go to an archive, library, or county building for genealogy research? Is it just a quick list of names? Do you know who you’re looking for and what you’re hoping to find? Do you have a plan in mind? You should!

Research Planning and Coordination Annual meeting (WHO?). Ph Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org Research Planning and Coordination Annual meeting (WHO?). Photograph, 1960. Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Imagescimages@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org Research Planning and Coordination Annual meeting (WHO?). Photograph, 1960.
Published: –
Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Okay, so your research planning probably wouldn’t involve this many people – but there could be this much paper and needed table room! 🙂

I’ll be honest, when I first started, I did not do that. So I ended up getting information rather haphazardly without really knowing what I was doing. Research plans stopped that for me. What is a research plan? It’s pretty much your plan of attack when it comes to a specific wall you may have hit. And that is the key here – it’s looking at a specific question to answer. That makes your work a LOT more focused. And, if you’re like me, it helps keep my lovely Genealogy ADD in check 🙂

I prefer my plans to be incredibly simple. The more complicated, the less likely I am to do something. So I first sit down and examine what specifically I wish to focus on:

The Question/Objective

This can be a birth/death/marriage date, a maiden name, parentage, etc. Anything that you’ve come across that you haven’t answered and you want it answered. This should be VERY specific – not a “what else can I find” type of question. So, for example, I would like to know an ancestor’s birth year.

Review Known Information

This can be a simple list – write down everything you know about that person. Where they lived, who they married, their children, census record information, etc. etc. Reviewing all of this information can sometimes make things very clear, and sometimes the answer you needed was there all along. I often have missed something in my information gathering and when I get to this point, it becomes quite clear!

Working Hypothesis

I don’t know if this is always necessary but sometimes after reviewing all of your known information, you may have an idea of your answer already or some clues about it. Go ahead and jot it down as this can also help keep you focused. I want to emphasize though that your results should be based on the information you gathered and your analysis of the information.

Sources

Here’s where you list what you have for the focus person. You can include this in your known information section too, which I’ll tend to do. I will include an analysis there too. Here’s where you really look at the information. Do you have a death certificate? Note who gave the information. Is that a person who would know? Why? Is a census record always accurate? Who lived nearby (neighbors may have given the census taker the information)? Etc. Etc. Really look at your sources and analyze the information that could come from them. This helps make your planning much easier.

Plan

Now is the good part! What is it you need? What records may have your answer? Do those records even exist?

This list  should include the records/sources you wish to find: marriage information, death certificate, baptism information, obituary, land records, etc. This part should also include WHERE those documents are. I normally list them in the order of the best record for what I need to the least.

Examples

Gathering information is what we do best! So, here is a list of places to get examples and more information on research planning:

Elizabeth Shown Mills Analysis and Research Plan (This is quite detailed and a great idea of what a professional may do).

Genealogy Research Plan by Genealogy.About.Com (simple and straightforward)

Cyndi’s List for Research Plans

 

Anything to add to this? Comment below! 🙂

 

 

Tuesday’s Tip: Organizing Your Digital Files

There are many different ways to organize your genealogy files and everyone puts their own spin on things to make them individual. To find the best way for you, you need to try them and see what works best for you and that you’d use it. That’s the key – will you actually do this?

For example, I love the idea of color coding ancestors. A new color for every ancestor! Awesome visual! I won’t do it though. I know me. Also, using binders sounds great! I love the idea of a full bookshelf with lots of binders! I was a teacher after all and all my classes had the master lesson plans in binders. However, that’s a bit too expensive at the moment and I have file folders galore and a filing cabinet, so I will use that. What I”m saying here is be practical. If you know you won’t do it, then don’t and find what you will do. There is no perfect system!

Digital files tend to be dealt with oddly in the genealogy world. Probably because we are a world of paper and so many people just keep paper. The problem with that should be obvious – paper doesn’t last. Not that computer files will last forever either, but I’m not thinking that long term here, I’m thinking about those what happens if moments. Heaven forbid we experience such disasters – fire, floods, other forms of destruction that leaves your files ruined. But it can and does happen.

I personally already have all my paper files scanned and in my computer. How long did that take you ask? I won’t lie, it took a whole summer of spending a good chunk of my day, every day, scanning and filing the scan away. However, now I have a backup for my paper files!

How do I organize that? Simply put, the same way I organize my paper files:

  • Each hanging folder is a surname
  • In each hanging folder there is a manila folder with a specific person and the files are there
  • All joint papers (census records, marriage records, etc.) are with the head of household or husband
  • Woman are filed under their maiden names once known and with husbands until then

Simple. So, in my computer I have a file folder named Genealogy. In that folder it looks like this:

Files

It’s just like my hanging files then – a surname. In each folder it will look like this, just like what my manila folders look like (that’s their death date following the name):

Surname File

In each of those folders, I have images of scanned records or records I’ve downloaded as I’ve found them. Each image also has the citation on it. I’ve either written it on the paper before I scanned the item, or I used photo editing software (Picasa for example, which is free) to type it in:

Witherell_Gard_1952_Newspaper_Death

You can adjust the margins too on certain software programs if there isn’t enough room like the above to type it in.

My advice for digital scanning – start now and take a simple route. File it the same way as if it were paper so you don’t get confused and be consistent. I created a word document called “Style Guide” and I use that to remind me how I file and what I call each file among other things.

You can always just start scanning in what you get now at the very least – begin right this moment! I use a scanner wand (something like this  ) to scan in documents but if you already have a regular scanner, that works too. Mine happens to be portable, which makes it nice when I go to a library or archive that will let me use my scanner. For photos, I go to my library to scan them and that’s a whole different blog post (the scanner wand doesn’t do photos justice like a regular scanner would).

Either way, start now! Then slowly take a chunk of your paper files and do a stack once a week, once a month, whatever. But it’s important to start!

And then… don’t forget to back up your computer files  (another blog post!) 🙂

 

Do you have a system you love and wish to share? Comment below!

 

Happy organizing 🙂

Tuesday’s Tip: DNA webinars from FTDNA

Yesterday I posted about the FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA) tests I sent to my grandparents. I was able to transfer my AncestryDNA to FTDNA and I’m anxiously waiting for that to finish up. While I’m waiting, I’m trying to learn as much as I can about the tools that FTDNA has to offer by going through their webinars. Specifically those on the FamilyFinder, the tests I sent to my grandparents and the one I transferred.

FTDNA webinars

The videos are about an hour and a half long a piece and I’m taking as many notes as I can while I’m watching. I also have a list of books I plan on getting from the library on DNA too! GRIP is having a DNA course this summer (still open by the way!) and although I can’t quite manage the cost this year, I looked at the course and noted the pre-reading recommended for the course:

Genetic Genealogy: The Basics and Beyond by Emily D. Aulicino

Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA by Richard Hill

DNA and Social Networking: A Guide to Genealogy in the Twenty-First Century by Debbie Kennett

Trace Your Roots with DNA: Using Genetic Tests to Explore Your Family Tree by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak and Ann Turner

I Have the Results of My Genetic Genealogy Test, Now What? by Blaine Bettinger, PhD, JD and Matt Dexter (the link is to the PDF version)

So those are now on my to-read list.

So those books, along with the webinars I mentioned should help make me better at interpreting the DNA tests once my grandparents send them in! If you’re interested in learning about using DNA in your genealogy, I highly recommend checking out the free webinars on FTDNA and checking out as many books as you can on the subject! Lucky for me, this was my favorite topic in science so I hope that I will be just as interested now as I was then. 🙂

Any other suggestions for learning about DNA (cost effective is always a plus!)? Leave a comment below!

 

Happy hunting!

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