best practice

In genealogy (or any other) research: Document your sources as you go.

I find a lot of contradictory information like, my grandmother is reportedly older than her mother, and I see that a headstone is the source of Gran’s birthday and her mother’s source was a drunk uncle.

I create a source called Family Stories and link it to all unverified information that I remember or am casually told at family events. I link that to events like births, marriages, divorces, deaths, immigration and adventures. I can tell at a glance when a new source is more/less reliable. Items linked to the Family Stories source is also a checklist for research for better sources (e.g. Newspaper obituaries, Registers of Births, Deaths and Marriages, military service records).

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