Seeing a new DNA match appear in your results list can be exciting. That excitement is only magnified when the match is a relatively close one on a family on which you are stuck. Start slow and don’t overwhelm the individual with details. They may be new to genealogy research completely. They may have taken the test because they got it as a gift. They may have taken the test to find out information about their biological parents. They may have discovered in their test results things about their parents or grandparents they didn’t know (like that a grandparent wasn’t a grandparent or that the testee had more siblings than they thought) and may be overwhelmed by emotion and not just confusing results. Start slow. Here’s one idea: […]
Print books may have an index, but not all indexes are created equally. I recently purchased a reprint of several landowner atlases for one Iowa county. The back contains an index which is very helpful. However that index only indexes the names of the landowners as shown on the property maps. It does not index the names in the biographies, photographs, or other lists that the book published. When using any print index, determine just what the index is indexing. Looking for your name in the index without knowing that key detail may cause you to overlook information.
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