Methods

When questioning your documents, there are more questions to ask than just if your Aunt Maude might have “corrected” a few things in the family Bible. Who created it? Did the author have any first hand knowledge? Did the author have any reason for bias? When was it created? Calendar changes and different ways of

Historical documents are complex things. Far more complex than we might first expect. Each document exists as at least two separate things—first as a physical object, and second as a collection of information, independent of any physical form. In two earlier posts (Don’t Believe It! and Genealogy Without Documentation Is…), I’ve discussed a few things

One of the most exciting things in researching any topic occurs when one stumbles across an unexpected bit of information, information that seems beyond the topic but that is interesting nonetheless. In a perfect world we would live happily ever after with our new found fact firmly in hand—but the world isn’t perfect. Authors are

William of Ockham was a Franciscan friar who lived at the turn of the 14th century. A celibate who lived that long ago is not the most likely of topics for a genealogy article. He is my subject for today not because of who he begat but because of what he wrote. Perhaps his most

The more research I do the more interested I become in what it is even possible to know. It is not an insignificant question. Genealogists, especially beginners, often oscillate back and forth between believing they know the absolute truth to being totally unsure, depending on whatever information has just turned up. Proving anything that is