Friday Quick Tip

Hi everyone, I'll keep this Friday's new handy genealogy tip short and sweet: If you can't find someone, try looking for someone you know is related to them - a brother, sister, or parent. Good luck! And remember, if you're stuck, you can check out my hourly rate here - I'd be happy to hear from you.

Friday Quick Tip

And so Friday's Quick Tip comes rolling around again. This week I will tell you this: never underestimate middle names, if you are looking for a Jane Emily, try looking for an Emily Jane, a Jane E, or even an Emily J, or a just plain Emily. You'd be surprised how often people change the preferred order of their names.

Friday Quick Tip

OK, here's this Friday's quick tip for helping you look at family history from a different angle: your ancestors were only human, sometimes they made mistakes - as all people do. Try looking at things from their point of view.

Friday Quick Tip

Ok, this Friday's quick tip is short and sweet - cats will sit on your research, you have to accept this. If you have a cat it's going to happen. If they sit on your laptop or scratch your research however, stop them!

Friday Quick Tip

Sorry I haven't posted anything this week, but here's your Friday Quick Tip, right on cue.

Ever think, 'I'm sure there are books that could help me learn more about the social/local/parish history that I'm interested in?' A lot of these books are out of print - some of them by more than a hundred years - but with a little ingenuity you can track some of them down. Abebooks provides a platform where you can track down and order copies of old books, while Hathi Trust and Open Library provide searchable scans of books held by universities etc. I'm not a fan of eBooks in general - so please don't see this is an endorsement for reading books in electronic formats - but for the purposes of research, these online libraries can be very valuable in allowing access to information which would otherwise be too difficult to find.

Happy searching - and remember, if you need any help you can always give me an e-mail or check out my website www.familyhistorybycerys.co.uk to browse my range of services.

Friday Quick Tip

OK, so this Friday's quick tip is this: in family history, if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck - sometimes it's unbelievably not a duck!

Friday Quick Tip

I guess that it's that time of week again: Friday Quick Tip time! This Friday's tip may seem like a no-brainer but you'd be surprised how easy it is to forget to do this. So do your best to remember that online genealogy resources often update what databases are available, or add more names to their databases - so it's worth you checking what new records are available on a regular basis.

Friday Quick Tip

What can I tell you for this Friday's quick tip? Let me see, well I'm in a rather odd mood today so this Friday's quick'n'handy family history tip is this: perseverance. Sometimes something can drive you mad because there's just nothing you can do to find the answer to your question. But that's ok, take a break and put it on the backburner perhaps, but don't give up on it completely; you never know when you'll break through that infamous 'brick wall.'

(And if you need another perspective to the problem, you could always try my hourly rate 'leaves' service at www.familyhistorybycerys.co.uk)

Friday Quick Tip

This Friday's quick and handy little genealogy tip is to do with organisation. Because first names run in families (e.g. if your ancestor was William Davies it's likely he had a son named William Davies, a grandson named William Davies, a great-grandson named William Davies, a nephew named William Davies, etc.) it's best to find ways to tell them apart when you're researching/writing about/talking about them. One of the simplest ways to do this is simply by putting their birth year after their name, e.g. William Davies (b. abt. 1835,) in an attempt to avoid confusion.

Friday Quick Tip

This Friday's quick tip is one you can use in everyday life as well as family history - if it's driving you mad, take a break. Have a cup of tea and a biscuit and go back to it.

Hope you have a good weekend!

Friday Quick Tip

Ok, this week's handy little genealogy tip is that people were often mistaken, misunderstood, or dishonest on census records - for example, stating their last town of residence instead of their birthplace.

Friday Quick Tip

Ok then, here's this week's quick family history tip: books on local history can show you how your ancestors lived, and details on the places they would've seen in their day-to-day lives.

Friday Quick Tip

Ok, here's this week's quick genealogy tip: Details passed down by family members can be a great help, but aren't always 100% accurate - dates, places, etc., can often be changed slightly in the telling and the remembering.

Friday Quick Tip

Hi - it's time for your second Friday Quick Tip. If you didn't see last week, this is where I provide a quick genealogy tip that may be helpful for someone new to family history, or someone who would just like a fresh perspective.

So, today's Friday Quick Tip: Don't always trust the online trees of other amateur genealogists - they may have made an error, so check their research carefully.

Friday Quick Tip

Every Friday I'm going to try to  give you a 'quick tip' for genealogy - just a little something that may help a beginner or you might not have thought of before.

So here's your first Friday Quick Tip: Always start with what you already know, about yourself, parents, grandparents, siblings, etc. Write it out to get a good idea of your starting point.