It’s easy to just surf from one genealogy website to another seeing what you can easily find. But have you really researched an ancestor in depth? Have you located every record on that 19th century ancestor? Or have you only looked at what you can find easily–and usually just online? Have you been through all the local land, court, and estate records? Have you looked at sites outside of FamilySearch and Ancestry.com? Have you looked to see if there are newspapers applicable to your specific ancestor that were not published near where she lived (perhaps religious or ethnic newspapers) or that are not available digitally? And are you organizing the information you do locate and summarizing it so that you know what you have found and what conclusions can be reached?
Gathering is great, but you’ve got to make certain you’ve gathered as much as possible…and then synthesize what you have found.
No responses yet