Attending seminars, reading books, following blogs, and reviewing journal articles are all great ways to learn genealogical skills, but the best way to really up your skill level is doing actual research.
One way that I’ve enhanced my skills is to go back and completely research a family that I thought was done (all children, their spouses) for a couple of generations by searching every possible record I can find, preferably during a time period when more records are available. I do this even if I don’t think the records will “help me” as sometimes reading them when I “know the answers” helps me to interpret the records. That helps to build my skills for those families where I don’t know as much and the records are not as detailed or complete.
And sometimes I realize I don’t know as much about the “already done” family as I thought I did.
3 Responses
Is any family ever “done?”
No, but some are more done than others 😉 Some researchers perform superficial research on families that appear to be done and move on to the bigger mysteries. Sometimes really working up a “done” family can enhance research skills to make research on the more difficult families go a little better.
I find it exciting when I go back and reread a item & discover things I wasn’t aware of or understood the importance of that discovery.