Genealogy research methods that hold up
Good genealogy is an investigation. You gather evidence from independent sources, test it, resolve the contradictions and write down why you believe the conclusion. This page explains how professionals do that.
Three streams of evidence
The method made familiar by Henry Louis Gates Jr. on the PBS series Finding Your Roots braids three things together: the stories a family tells, the paper trail in archives, and DNA. Each one covers the weak points of the others.
- Oral history tells you where to look and what to look for. It is often wrong in detail.
- Documents give names, dates and places. They can be missing, misindexed or false.
- DNA does not lie about biological relationship. It cannot give you a name without a tree to place it in.
When all three agree, you have a finding. When they disagree, you have your next research question.
The Genealogical Proof Standard
Professional genealogists measure a conclusion against five requirements. Use them as a checklist before you accept any new ancestor into your tree.
- Reasonably exhaustive research. You looked in every source likely to hold an answer, including the inconvenient ones.
- Complete source citations. Anyone could find each record again from your notes.
- Analysis and correlation. You compared the sources with each other and judged how reliable each one is.
- Resolution of conflicts. Where records disagree, you explained which one is right and why.
- A written conclusion. You wrote out your reasoning so someone else can check it.
How to weigh a source
Ask three questions of every record.
| Question | Stronger | Weaker |
|---|---|---|
| Is it the original? | The original record or an image of it | An index, transcript or someone's online tree |
| Who gave the information? | A person who witnessed the event | Someone repeating what they were told |
| When was it recorded? | At the time of the event | Decades later, from memory |
A death certificate shows why this matters. The date and place of death come from the doctor, who was there. The birth date and parents' names come from a grieving relative, who was not. One document, two levels of reliability.
Online family trees are clues only. Many copy each other's mistakes. Never add a person because a tree says so. Find the record the tree should have been built from.
Investigate the whole person
Federal background investigators do not stop at a name and a birth date. They rebuild a life: every address, every job, every school, the people who knew the subject, and any gap in the timeline. The same discipline works on an ancestor who died a century ago.
- Confirm identity first. Establish full name, variants, birth date and birthplace from at least two independent sources. Make sure the John Carter in your record is your John Carter.
- Build a timeline. List every dated event you can document, in order. Residence, marriage, children, land, military service, death.
- Look for gaps. A missing ten years means a missing record, a move, a name change, military service or an institution. Each gap is a question to answer.
- Corroborate everything. One source is a claim. Two independent sources that agree are evidence.
- Find the associates. Witnesses on deeds, sponsors at baptisms, the informant on a death certificate, neighbors on the census. They were usually relatives.
- Record what you did not find. "Searched 1880 census for Marion County, no entry" saves you from repeating the search, and it is evidence in its own right.
The ancestor research checklist turns this into a list you can tick off for each person.
When you are stuck: research the neighbors
People moved, married and bought land among family, friends and neighbors. When your ancestor's own trail goes cold, follow theirs.
- Read ten households above and below your family on every census page.
- Note every witness, bondsman and executor in your ancestor's documents and research each one.
- Trace the siblings. A brother's death certificate may name the parents when your ancestor's does not.
- Follow groups. Families often migrated together from the same county or village.
When records disagree
They will. Ages drift by several years between censuses. Names are spelled by whoever held the pen. Do this:
- List each version of the fact and the source it came from.
- Rank the sources using the three questions above.
- Ask who had a reason to shade the truth. People adjusted ages to marry, enlist, avoid a draft or claim a pension.
- Choose the best-supported version, and write down why.
Search with spelling variants every time. Whitfield may be indexed as Whitefield, Witfield or Wheatfield.
Next: Use the checklist on one ancestor, then read how DNA confirms the paper trail.