Step B: Understanding the basic genealogical data flow.

Before people have started doing genealogy, they often think of it as "building a family tree", but that is a serious mistake, because a family tree is simply one presentation of the genealogy information you have.  The important thing is to store as much information as you can, including the source of that information.  Once you do that, you can (using software described later) generate all sorts of reports.  Generating the family tree is easy once you have the data behind it.

On the other hand, if you view genealogy as just filling in one report, that one report is all you will ever have.

Here is the basic genealogy data flow:

Source of information about your family (such as obituaries, census data, birth announcements, stories that people have remembered)   

-- flows into --->

Your genealogical records (which are usually a database which is

part of a genealogical software package)

-- flows into --->

Reports, charts, and paperwork that you can share with others (and

which are usually created by your genealogical software)

I'll come back to this data flow repeatedly, and use it to help explain and justify a lot of the advice in this blog.  However, right now, I just want you to understand these ideas:

First, all information in your genealogical records comes from a source.  That source might be an on-line web site, a paper record, someone's memory, or someone else's research.  But no matter what it is you need to link the data in your record with the source it came from.  Genealogy software makes this easy to do, but you still need to do it.

I know when you start researching genealogy, you think these things will not happen or be rare.  Maybe.  But they are more common than you think, and they are the most interesting parts of genealogy.  I've got three or four different birthdays for one grandmother, and still don't know which is accurate!

Second, once your data stored in genealogical software, it is easy to generate all kids of different reports and charts.

Third, especially early on, it is worthwhile to generate the reports that you are interested in, and see if you like the way they look.  If not, it is often true that you can enter your data differently, and it will be put in the reports differently.  So it makes sense to see how the reports come out, and tailor your data entry so that you like the reports which end up being created by your software.

A Digression on Sourcing

The process of linking your information to the source it came from is called "sourcing", and in my opinion the most important rule of genealogy is to always source your information.  Even if it is your own knowledge, or something someone else told you, you still source it.

This is important, because there is often conflicting information.  My family tree database might say that Jane Doe died in 10-Jan-1910, but then some relative will send me a family tree that says she died on 10-Jan-1911.  Which is it?  If my tree does not have source information, and the other tree doesn't ether, then there is no way to know which is right, or even how to start researching which is right.  However, if my tree has sourced the information to a birth certificate, which is available on line, but the other tree has sourced it to an interview with another relative done in 1980 (ie. 70 years after the event).  Now we know who is more likely to be right (written records over memories), but even if we are still not sure, we can go back to the original sources and can start re-researching there.

If someone send me a family tree, with information that I don't already have, if there is no source information on the tree, when I add it to my own genealogy database, I have to say "source: tree from relative X on date Y".  Basically, I'm just trusting that person, that there research was good.  It might be, it might not be.  But if they have sourced their information, then I can see their sources and know the quality of their information.  If needed, I can double check it.