Archive for Techniques
Writing a Genealogy Letter
For those of you who have been around the hobby since before the internet, this topic will be nothing new to you. Back in the day, it was the one major way to gather information and it took the patience of Job sometimes to get an answer from a key person. Letter writing seems to be a lost art today, but it is still a useful Genealogical Tool. It helps you make contact with more current generations whose records you can’t find on the Internet or from some other source. It also gives a far more personal touch to research that is often spent in libraries or sitting at a computer screen. Here’s how I approach the Genealogical Letter when I need to use it as a method.
Catchem BEFORE They Croak
Old people are a great resource for the Genealogist. Simply by having lived long, they have accumulated a set of life experiences, that can greatly aid you in your research. They can give you context to go with the documents you may have discovered. They can also help you timeline things and also help you pinpoint geographically, when and where the family events may have happened.
In a nutshell, they give you a human perspective to the research that can add a lot of color to what you have learned. But, in order to obtain this information, you have to Catchem BEFORE They Croak. Here’s a series of methods that I have used to facilitate gathering this information.
