This guide should help you with your family history research. Whether you are a complete beginner or have been doing it for a while; there will hopefully be something of interest to you here.
I have put together links to some of the best genealogy articles on the web (and a few of my own) in 8 sections; seven of which make up the essential steps in successful family history research.
The first articles are about the preliminary work that should be done. We then move onto documentary evidence, research strategies, then look at some of the major document types and archives before going into DNA testing and putting your research into context.
Finally there are some articles on report writing, family tree software and other resources.
Contents
Section 6 – Putting research into Context
Family history can be a bit boring if all we are doing is collecting names and dates. Knowing more about the times our ancestors were alive, where they lived or where they worked adds layers of interest to our research and puts it into context. These articles can help with that.
Free British Industrial History for Genealogy Research
Bespoke Genealogy
If your ancestors were from Britain and you have an idea where they worked, then a great free resource is Grace’s Guides. This site will put your ancestors working lives in context and this article discusses the industry and company information that can be found here.
Section 7 – Documenting and Communicating
Documenting and communicating our results is a key part of family history research. Doing this helps us share our work with our family and other interested parties. It also helps us organize the work and prevent going over the same stuff more than once. These articles look at ways to create reports, books and family trees as well as tips on organization.
Best Genealogy Software Programs – Your Top 5
The Genealogy Guide
My knowledge of different genealogy software packages is fairly limited as I’ve been using the same (although regularly updated) program for many years. So for a comparison of five of the current best selling products; here is an article from the Genealogy Guide.
Firstly, here are some guides from Britain’s National Archives to help you with very old documents:
- Medieval Latin
- Paleography (reading old handwriting)
- Latin Paleography
- Roman Numerals
- Currency converter: 1270–2017
Here are some of my previous posts with links to other useful genealogy sites:
20 Totally Free UK Genealogy Sites
20 Plus Essential Online Irish Genealogy Resources
Where to Find Online Canadian Genealogy Records
50 Useful English & Welsh Genealogy Websites
See the Resources page for more links and other useful genealogy related things.
Happy researching!
For further reading, you may find these books interesting:
There are more Genealogy books in the Resources section here.
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Thanks for including my Best Genealogy Software Programs article Alistair. It’s very much appreciated.