My next genealogy "tip" is very important, but is often neglected by family history researchers: CITE YOUR SOURCES. There are many reasons why this is so important.
The first reason is an ethical one. When you use someone else's work, you should give them credit. I have been researching my family for nearly 15 years. I have spent countless hours in libraries, courthouses, archives, and historical societies, not to mention the many hours spent in front of a computer doing digital research. I have painstakingly entered thousands of facts and sources into my genealogy database. I've been pretty successful and have shared my work with many others to help them in their own research. If they use my work and don't give me credit, that's not really fair, is it?
The second reason for citing your sources is so that you can find them again. When I first started my genealogy research, I didn't see the point of this. I was sure I would remember where I got the information. However, I quickly learned that this was not true. As my tree began to grow, there were more and more things to remember. I soon saw the value of documenting my work.
When you are doing family history research, it is inevitable that you will have to re-check some of your facts, often years later. If you haven't noted where you got the information, you may waste hours (or even years) trying to find the information again.
The last reason for citing your sources may be the most important one. Whenever you do any kind of research, it is important to use the most reliable sources. You probably learned this in high school or college when you had to write that dreaded research paper. If you were researching the Civil War, for instance, you would want to consult many sources, then evaluate which sources were the most reliable. The best sources would probably be documents that were written at the time (diaries, letters, etc.) or books written by historians who have consulted those primary sources and have documented their work.
The same is true for genealogy. It is important to use the best sources available and to document those sources, so that other researchers can evaluate the validity of your work.
I'd like to conclude with a word of warning about internet genealogy. I mentioned in my blog on Thursday that the internet has made family history research much easier and faster. However, you should be aware that there is also a lot of misinformation out there. The internet has made it very easy for people to post their family trees online. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these trees are undocumented, so there is no way to evaluate the validity of the information contained in them. My favorite site for online family trees is Rootsweb's World Connect Project: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/
Rootsweb has a search feature which allows you to limit results to those which have sources. I try to stick with trees that have good source documentation. Even then, I check everything myself before adding it to my own tree. Of course, in many cases the sources given are other family trees, but I can usually find a few trees that are well documented.
If you ever get to the point where you have researched your family and want to post your tree online, I have another piece of advice for you. Don't include any living individuals in your tree. With the increase in identity theft, you wouldn't want to post all that personal information online.
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