Research Skills
-
Primary vs. Secondary Information
I’ve talked about the difference between sources, evidence and proof (1) as well as the classification of sources (2), but I haven’t yet talked about classification of information. In the social sciences, particularly in history, there is no distinction made between the sources and the information that these sources hold. These fields generally think of…
-
The Sydney Declaration for Genealogists: The Genealogist as Scientist
I had the honour of giving a presentation about Forensic Genetic Genealogy (FGG) at the recent Canadian Universities for Forensic Science (CUFFS) conference! (1) The program included fascinating presentations about forensic science. Although I felt a little out of place as a genealogist, I found the topics intriguing and thought-provoking. A range of topics in…
-
Citation Templates
Remember Mad Libs? Teachers liked them because they were a fun way to review the parts of speech, and kids liked them because they could try to be as vulgar as possible and make their friends laugh. The (noun) went to (place). The (noun) was (adjective). Citations are a lot like Mad Libs, just not…
-
Waypoints and Other Layering Issues
In my last post I talked about citation basics. I had more to say but it was already getting to be a long post so I’m going to put the rest here. The first thing I want to talk about is waypoints. Back in the day, URLs were not stable. Here today, gone tomorrow. Incidentally,…
-
Citation Basics
I talked about why citations are important in this blog post. Today I’m going to talk about citation basics, to make it easier to understand how the components of a citation fit together. Let’s start with the very basic of basic citations: a book. Tom Jones, Mastering Genealogical Documentation (Arlington, Virginia : National Genealogical Society,…
-
Pick a Number, Any Number
In The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow, he introduces a pattern: 2,4,6. He says that you need to find out what the pattern is, but that he cannot tell you if you’re correct about the pattern, but he will tell you if you give him a pattern if that pattern matches…
-
Slow is fast
“Lady Astronaut of Mars” by Mary Robinette Kowal (1) is one of my favourite sci-fi series. It takes place in an alternate past, where the space race becomes a matter life and death for humanity. The mantra for the astronauts is “slow is fast.” Wearing their big, bulky spacesuits in low to no gravity makes…
-
How many is enough?
I mentioned in my post about the GPS (1) that we have to stop thinking of genealogy as a collection of sources. While we are moving in the right direction of thinking of genealogy seriously even though it’s “just” a hobby, the idea that there is a magic number of sources we need to have…
-
The GPS: A Recipe for Success
Most people know GPS as “global positioning system,” the device in their phone/car that gets them where they’re going. Today I’m going to write about the acronym as it applies to genealogy: it stands for Genealogical Proof Standard. While it will get you where you’re going if you follow it —much like your car’s GPS…
-
Derivative vs. Original Sources
I was really proud of my post How to Order Records from the GRO (1) until it was pointed out to me that GRO records aren’t original records, they are copies of the original records. The copies were made at the end of each quarter, so they date back to almost the time the original…
Jennealogie 