Helping and sharing in genealogy. It’s truly a wonder to see so many people willing to help each other. I see message boards, pages on Facebook, and other social media opportunities to share information and hints when someone has a question.
I see fellow family historians talking with each other at genealogy conferences, institutes, and seminars. I see many willing and capable people helping others to read a word on an old document.
I see questions that ask where to find a specific record. That is where I sometimes cringe a bit.
Often the answer that helped you may mislead someone researching a different person, time frame, locality, or even nationality.
The website with digitized newspapers may have yielded the obituary you sought, but may not have newspapers for the other person’s locality. The type of vital records office that supplied the death records you sought may not be the same office in another state or county. I have seen several answers to some questions that would take that inquirer to about 4 different locations to find a record. None of those locations were the correct one. Most of the answer were just guesses.
Just wait a bit before responding. See if someone else responds who has dealt with the same type of record in the same locality in the same time frame. I know it’s painful for us to have patience when researching our family history or are eager to help someone else.
Try to avoid the “grasping at straws” suggestion. We are fortunate to have many websites and published guides that do contain specific answers. FamilySearch may not have the digitized records for their locality even though it does for your ancestral place. Do a quick check and tell that person if what they need is indeed on that site. A subscription website may have had a vital records index that helped in your locality, but may not have one for that person’s locality.
Instead, refer the inquirer to the website of the specific county courthouse, the catalog of the state archives, the place that will likely have their record, or let them know that it’s only a guess. None of us knows where each and every record can be found for each and every place. Thankfully, there are people who do know about particular records and places to find them in response to a specific question.
It will keep places that hold historic records from being bombarded with requests for records they don’t have. It will save frustration for the person asking the question. It will be more educational for the inquirer and the other readers if we don’t guess. No one will have to wade through ten responses and then have to guess which is the correct answer versus the incorrect guesses.
Now back to learning more so I can be sure I am answering the questions without guesses.
© 2015, Paula Stuart-Warren. All rights reserved.
I know what you mean about ‘cringe’. It even happens with some genealogy speakers who are ‘high profile’. They speak confidently and sound convincing, but they make sweeping generalisations that are misleading. I wish they would explain that what they are saying only applies to a certain area. The fastest way to lose the respect of others is to imply that you are an expert on a specific topic when you are not.