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Compiled Sources & Where to Find Them (view source)
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Your search in "compiled sources" should include four fundamental steps: | Your search in "compiled sources" should include four fundamental steps: | ||
#Preliminary search in home sources | |||
#Preliminary search for compiled genealogies, biography, local history | |||
#Search in indexes (and in the original record) sources in the host country of settlement | |||
#Search in indexes (and in the original record) sources in the country of origin (works as a first-step IF surname is not too common) | |||
=== Step 1. Preliminary search in home sources<br> === | |||
Thoroughly scour all home sources (including family history papers, copies of records, pictures, old letters (i.e. with an old address), family Bibles, journals/dairies, copies of vital record certificates and church records, memorabilia , interviews with extended family and close relatives’, even searching their home records, as well as interviewing old neighbors may prove very helpful! If we do not seek these and scan all to ascertain important details about our immigrant ancestors, we cannot honestly say that our (preliminary) search is completed. | |||
=== Step 2. Preliminary search for compiled genealogies, biography, local history <br> === | |||
The preliminary search continues by requiring you to initiate the next vital step—the standard procedure—of seeking for and searching compiled sources. Such compiled sources to search for includes published or manuscript sources on families found in libraries and archives; pedigrees, biographies, autobiographies, town and local histories, and online family genealogies. To some, this is the ‘ugly duckling’ aspect of the research process but nevertheless, a vital phase of doing standard (proper) due diligence. | |||
Like a research scientist before seeking an advanced degree or a government-sponsored grant to fund forensic or frontier research or a campaign of discovery, preliminary search-protocol requires diligent and broad-spectrum searches for and in compiled sources to determine ‘what’s already researched and thus far discovered in the chosen area of scientific research. Every researcher—beginners or scientific—must do the same, diligently! It pinpoints on a ‘map’ more precisely where you’ve ‘arrived’, in your research, by learning what’s already “known” or a given, about your family. How will you know where you want to go if you don’t know the current point to where you’ve progressed in your family’s historical research? If your preliminary searches stops after completing ‘closet or attic or basement searches’ on shelves and in boxes for family and home sources, you ignore outside sources, that is far too limited in scope for what should be a comprehensive and more thorough search for other compiled sources available and waiting to be discovered outside the home! To smugly fold the arms, cock the head back and think, ‘That’s all I need to know; now let’s start researching in original and primary record sources’—is naïve at least and, at worst, it short-circuits the comprehensive research process! | Like a research scientist before seeking an advanced degree or a government-sponsored grant to fund forensic or frontier research or a campaign of discovery, preliminary search-protocol requires diligent and broad-spectrum searches for and in compiled sources to determine ‘what’s already researched and thus far discovered in the chosen area of scientific research. Every researcher—beginners or scientific—must do the same, diligently! It pinpoints on a ‘map’ more precisely where you’ve ‘arrived’, in your research, by learning what’s already “known” or a given, about your family. How will you know where you want to go if you don’t know the current point to where you’ve progressed in your family’s historical research? If your preliminary searches stops after completing ‘closet or attic or basement searches’ on shelves and in boxes for family and home sources, you ignore outside sources, that is far too limited in scope for what should be a comprehensive and more thorough search for other compiled sources available and waiting to be discovered outside the home! To smugly fold the arms, cock the head back and think, ‘That’s all I need to know; now let’s start researching in original and primary record sources’—is naïve at least and, at worst, it short-circuits the comprehensive research process! | ||
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Here’s the ‘Second step’ every resaercher should employ in the research process—but it is also the most overlooked part of the research process and not always considered standard procedure. | Here’s the ‘Second step’ every resaercher should employ in the research process—but it is also the most overlooked part of the research process and not always considered standard procedure. | ||
== Find and Search “Compiled Sources”: A List == | ==== Find and Search “Compiled Sources”: A List ==== | ||
Here’s a good a list of places for where to find online, published and manuscript (compiled) sources on family surnames and lineages: | Here’s a good a list of places for where to find online, published and manuscript (compiled) sources on family surnames and lineages: | ||
=== | === O'''nline family genealogy sites, pedigrees, family history, etc. sites:''' === | ||
<br> World catalog at http://worldcat.org/. In the '''Subject'' field enter the surname and “family” like this, ''Prescott Family''. This searches the catalogs and displays the results from thousands of especially U.S. libraries at once. | <br> World catalog at http://worldcat.org/. In the '''Subject'' field enter the surname and “family” like this, ''Prescott Family''. This searches the catalogs and displays the results from thousands of especially U.S. libraries at once. | ||
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Gen Serve at [http://www.genserv.com/ http://www.genserv.com/] is a large gateway website with 1000’s of website links to it | Gen Serve at [http://www.genserv.com/ http://www.genserv.com/] is a large gateway website with 1000’s of website links to it | ||
=== | === '''Repositories and libraries''' === | ||
Search those libraries and prepositoriesholding the largest collections of compiled sources with online catalogs. Many of them especially hold published or manuscript family histories, genealogies, biographies and other compiled family and local histories (and many of which may have one and often more—internal alpha-arranged listing or index or related database[s]). If an publication is found, often you can order it through the Inter-Library Loan Service. | Search those libraries and prepositoriesholding the largest collections of compiled sources with online catalogs. Many of them especially hold published or manuscript family histories, genealogies, biographies and other compiled family and local histories (and many of which may have one and often more—internal alpha-arranged listing or index or related database[s]). If an publication is found, often you can order it through the Inter-Library Loan Service. | ||
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Large to very small local public libraries often have rich local genealogical holdings | Large to very small local public libraries often have rich local genealogical holdings | ||
=== 3 | === Step 3: '''Search compiled sources or indexes in the host country of settlement''' === | ||
Top indexes to original record sources to search can be found in the followingrecord sources (clue: ''first ''search for "indexes" to each record-type; i.e. just about all 50 states and most Canadian Provinces now have some indexes available online. And nearly all have at least manuscript indexes to most of the following record-types!)''':''' | Top indexes to original record sources to search can be found in the followingrecord sources (clue: ''first ''search for "indexes" to each record-type; i.e. just about all 50 states and most Canadian Provinces now have some indexes available online. And nearly all have at least manuscript indexes to most of the following record-types!)''':''' | ||