Researching Genealogy

The Internet can be overwhelming and genealogy research on the internet is no exception. It is growing all the time and you need to filter out the good from the bad and that is not always easy.
Documenting your research and where you have visited is a priority.
If you dont write down the places you have visited or record you have already checked you will find yourself going over the same thing again.
Keep some kind of log of your place, date, time, database and page numbers and what and where you researched. If it was on the internet keep track of the address of the site.
Dont use only one spelling in the names in your family. You can always put the other surname in parentheses. First names May be spelled different:
Zachariah, Zaheriah, Zach, Benj., Benjy, Benjamin, Jas, James, Wm, William, Willie, Bart, Bert, Bartley, Bartlett.
Census takers often wrote names down wrong or misspelled them. They often used nicknames. If the website search has a soundex search use that. If not, try different variations of the first name and the last name.
One of your ancestors may have been known by several names at different times in their life. Rebecca, could be Rebecky, Becca, Rebecka, Becky, Sarah was often known as Sally. Margaret was Peggy or Maggie.,
Middle names were not used often but they were used. Sometimes only an intitial.
Never take anything you find at face value especially on the internet. Books written years ago are often wrong on at least half of their genealogy lines. Documents weren’t readily available.
You often need to back it up with more than one source if you can.
Saving your Information on your computer instead of a paper trail is dangerous to do. You may lose it if your computer crashes or you have to clean it off.
If you wish to save your research this way then I suggest you buy a small external hard drive that you have connected to the external of your computer. If you lose what you have on your computer this wont be affected. There are several different types. An actual 100 gigabyte drive or larger. External drive.
Or a small USB type. They are making these now that have quite a bit of memory.
If you chose to do this, You can always make copies of your information later.
Having one of these is a great idea anyway, to save your research you find on the internet for later use and then fill your forms out from it at your own leisure.
Saving census images and land records anything you find,
even photos are easier if you have a usb drive or external harddrive.

Gaylw