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 now and then on a small topic that pops into my head. This one can save you time and effort.
Take the time to read about a collection
It can take some discipline to take the time to read about a collection when you’re researching. But these notes can be so valuable. They keep you from making false assumptions about the information you’re looking at. They might even solve a mystery.
Case in point: I found a collection on Ancestry of Appointments of U.S. Postmasters, 1832-1971. I found ancestors’ names in the collection but the columns on the pages lacked headers. Instead of trying to guess what each column meant, I read the information about the collection beneath the search box and source information. It helped me make sense of a fairly confusing set of pages.
It doesn’t take long to read about a collection and it can be time well spent!
Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash
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