When using any record or database, ask yourself:
how does someone get in this material?
Do they have to live in a certain place? Do they have to own property? Do they have to have a job? Do they have to be dead? Do they have to be a member of a specific religion? Do they have to be a certain gender? Do they have to be a certain age? Do they have to have a certain marital status? Do they have to be a veteran?
If you don’t know how someone gets into a record, database, or finding aid, it is difficult to use it effectively.
2 Responses
This is a great suggestion on more than one level!
Knowing how someone “qualifies” for inclusion in a record, could help eliminate a same named person, who really isn’t in your tree. That was useful for me when I was getting started.
That’s a really good point–the eliminating of the same name person was a idea I wasn’t thinking of when I wrote this 😉