Family History - Conducting Family History Research

Conducting Family History Research

Family history can either be in the form of a printed document, electronic document or sound or video recording that preserves this history for future generations. The readers will expect it to describe where the family originated from, name the members of the family and state who they married.

Family Histories are often created as a memorial for the deceased and are written to be passed down to future generations.

Some records that are used to create family histories are:

• Apprenticeship records
• Baptism or christening records
• Birth certificates
• Family Business Records
• Cemetery records and tombstones
• Census records
• Coroner's reports
• Death records
• Diaries, personal letters, family Bibles, scrapbooks and ephemera
• Directories - trade directories, street directories, telephone directories
• Earlier family histories
• Marriage records
• Military records
• Newspapers - both news items and advertisements
• Property records and contemporary maps
• Public records - Social Security records (in the U.S.), Poor Law records (in the UK), registers of electors
• Tax records
• Wills and probate records
• Poll Books & Registers of Electors

These records can be broken into two categories, primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are documents which are created within a short period of time (usually within hours) after something has happened such as a birth or death. Secondary sources are documents that are created days, weeks, months, or even years after something has happened. For instance, a death certificate is a primary source for documenting a person's date and place of death but it can also be considered a secondary source for that person's birth date, place of birth, and even that person's parents. The person who gives the information for a document has witnessed the incident for it to be a primary source but may have "heard" about the incident for it to be a secondary source. Many times, a person who gives the information of birth for a death certificate may accidentally give the wrong birth information because the birth may have happened years before.

Today many people are using these records to recover their family history. But most of these records include only technical details of a person's life, such as their birth date, whom they married, the jobs they did, and so forth, but they contain very little about the person themselves such as their likes, dislikes, hobbies, hopes and dreams. These personal details can only be gleaned by more detailed research, and the use of social history. Some family histories are published and become useful historical records in their own right.

Family history websites and indexes are also useful, and for modern researchers they are often the main source of information. Some offer resources (e.g. censuses or civil registration records) that have previously only been available in microform or as hard copies; some are designed for individual researchers to share their information with others; some exist primarily to link people who share the same ancestors, or the same research interests. Some websites offer useful free resources to family historians in addition to helpful hints and tips.