Get Outside Your Comfort Zone

You may be better able to answer your genealogical questions and improve your research skills by getting outside of your “genealogical comfort zone.” This can be done by:

  • Using a source you have never used before–or have refused to use.
  • Learning about a new source.
  • Helping someone research a family in an area different from yours.
  • Researching one of your ancestral neighbors–just to work on a different family and perhaps gain insight into your own family.

It can be easy to get stuck in a rut if we only use the same sources and our family is pretty homogeneous. Sometimes it helps to broaden our perspective.