When you are searching for several families or lines who live in the same geographic area, what do you do?
If you are searching transcribed birth, marriage, death, or property records, etc., at a library, or original records at some other site away from home,
-- do you search for as many of your known families as possible on the same visit, or
-- do you search only one line and return to the facility on a different day to search for other families?
Is there an efficient way to search multiple lines who lived in the same area?
"And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers...." Malachi 4:6
I would try one family at a time. Of course, when you do that you always find something interesting that is not the family you are searching.
ReplyDeleteI would recommend searching all the birth, death, and marriage records for several families at the same time, and maybe keeping each separate family's records in a different folder, or file...but property records are more complex and time consuming.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure, but in a couple of weeks I'm about to find out!
ReplyDeleteI actually get so little time at libraries, etc. that I find myself just grabbing whatever I can about any family name I can think of. It's not the most efficient way of researching, but I have to do what I can with the time that I have. Afterwards, I can (hopefully) organize it at home and I usually always have something I can work with on several different branches. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI do the same as Lori. Humming to myself, "we may never pass this way again..." my intention while at a library or whatever is to collect all I can and sort it out later. If it's a research trip away from home, I like to spend the evening in my motel reviewing what I've collected and figuring out what to look for the next day if I'm still going to be there. Actual data entry and sourcing are usually saved for after the trip, although this is where my efficient plan often turns to dust!
ReplyDeleteIt really depends on a couple of things. First, if it's a repository that I don't get to often (in another state), I set up a plan for various families or locations (I may search for several families in one locality too). I go after anything and everything because as TK says, "we may never pass this way again..."
ReplyDeleteIf it's a local repository, I usually have a specific project or question I am trying to answer and stick with that.
Good post!