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Organize Your Family History

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Quick Tip #12: Don’t enter a fact without creating a source citation

December 22, 2020 By Janine Adams 2 Comments

Here’s the next in my occasional series of bite-size Quick Tips. Click on the Quick Tips tag for my other Quick Tips. Because I tend to write longer posts, I wanted to provide a quick-to-read (and quick-to-write) post every couple of weeks on a small topic that pops into my head. I think this tip is an especially important one.

Don’t enter a fact without creating a source citation

When I first caught the genealogy bug at the turn of this century, I wrote down facts willy nilly without bothering to note where the fact came from. My “research” progressed quickly, but I ended up with an unreliable mess. I abandoned researching for a number of years and when I came back to in 2011 I vowed never to enter a fact into my database without creating a source citation and assigning that source to the fact.

That policy has served me well and is part of my digital workflow. Having a source for every single fact in my Reunion database means that when conflicting information come up, I can easily evaluate the sources and make a determination on what is more likely to be true. It gives me confidence in my research. And it makes my research more credible (and valuable) to others.

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

Filed Under: Challenges, Genealogy tips Tagged With: quick tips, research, source documentation

Comments

  1. mollybwriter says

    December 22, 2020 at 4:25 pm

    So true – as I’ve written the first volume of my family history I’ve had to go back and correct 1001 source citations and footnotes! Vol 2 I’ll correctly cite the sources as I go along!

    Reply
    • Janine Adams says

      December 23, 2020 at 9:07 am

      Glad this resonated with you, Molly. Thank you for commmenting. And good luck on Volume 2!

      Reply

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about me

I'm Janine Adams, a professional organizer and a genealogy enthusiast. I love doing family history research, but I find it's very easy for me to get overwhelmed and not know where to turn next. So I'm working hard to stay organized and feel in control as I grow my family tree.

In this blog, I share my discoveries and explorations, along with my organizing challenges (and solutions). I hope by sharing what I learn along the way I'll be able to help you stay focused and have fun while you do your research, too.

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