I recently asked for suggestions from my readers as to what was giving them the hardest time in their family research and I received some wonderful questions. Sorry to say, it's not my purpose on this list to do personal research on particular names - this is just a place where I hopefully can give you a little insight into your research and feed you some ideas of how to make it more logical or easy. It doesn't always work - we all have family that must have had ESP and disappeared every time a county or state official came down the road; or suffered from terrible memory loss in naming off their children and their ages; or lost everything of importance to us - Bibles, marriage licenses, discharge papers ... In this tip, I'm going to just throw out a few miscellaneous thoughts. Many of your questions have dealt with tips I've made in the past and it would help if you did a quick review of them sometime this week. But, as a little recap! COURTESY When you're working on line and lo and behold, there is a long lost cousin, or possible kin, who has sent in a query about the same person you're looking for it is celebration time. You compose a wonderful and likely too lengthy reply and send them 30 years of your research. Then you wait, and wait and wait. The next time you browse around, there's all your research on their website with no indication that you had sent it to them. It instead looks like they had all done that research on their own. You write them, kindly DEMANDING they give you credit for your work and suddenly "you don't have mail!" 1 - if you have been helped by someone, either by the old snail mail or on the web - write them and thank them. After a few times of a person's "grabbing and running" with their information, your name will go on a lot of lists - the "not to be trusted" list that is. 2 - if you've received information, ASK if it can be put on your web site or in your records and then give them total credit. List their address, email address, everything that will let other readers know that this is not your material. 3 - if you write for information from others, please, please, please, don't give them the "whole ball of wax" at the same time. There is nothing more discouraging to me than to have a query sent me and have paragraph after paragraph of family history followed by ten pages of queries. I will immediately put this request at the bottom of my to-do list! I have been forced to put the following statement on many of my posts as a historian: "I have no connection and no further information." But still, some will write thinking me their long lost cousin. 4 - if you send a query for a look-up from a volunteer for a certain county, please DO NOT say any of the following: " I THINK he was in your county, but don't know for sure." "I don't exactly when he might have been there.": "His name was something like Swartzeneiger or Snoozelman." "Give me ALL you have on this family." "Would you look up the following...?" (followed by the name of every courthouse book in the county!) 5 - Even if the person can not help you, say THANK YOU!!!! Remember what your Mommy said about please and thank you? ORGANIZATION You're on the way to the courthouse in a distant county or state. You're so excited you're afraid to have breakfast, your stomach is in a stir since you've been waiting for ten years to go here and your spouse finally agreed to humor you. You grab your purse/satchel and dash in the courthouse/library/county office/ fill in the blank. And then your mind goes blank. Books, everywhere books? Files ... people ... microfilm readers ... people lined up at the copy machine ... You sink into the nearest chair and try to re-grasp your sanity. What was I looking for? Where are my notes? What date was that? Oh mercy! You end up spending the entire cherished time there running around like the proverbial "chicken with it's head off" and not getting to do much of anything profitable. Get organized! Voice of experience speaking. WHAT TO TAKE WITH YOU: 1 - Plenty of pencils. Many libraries and other repositories will not allow pens. 2 - Plenty of paper. Spiral notebooks are the handiest ... you won't lose the pages or forget to number them. 3 - Plenty of change. Many larger libraries issue temporary "credit cards" now. You pay up front and it allows the user to make a specified number of copies. If you run out, you have to get another card. Clerks and librarians who do not use this card system just LOVE to be interrupted in their work for people asking for change for the copy machine. NOT! 4 - Take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the "layout of the land." It's worth it in the long run. Check for index books, vertical files, state and county records ... you won't look like an out-of- towner crazy genealogist! 5 - Check copy costs FIRST!!! I found this out the hard way after working in our own county which charges 25 cents a copy - or a major library which charges 10 cents a copy. I was madly having copies made only to find out that the fee was $10.00 per document in this county. 6 - Check to see if you can make your own copies or if you have to have an employee make the copies for you. 7 - Check to see if you can bring in a lap top computer or copier before hand. This will save you a lot of lugging goodies around if there is a rule against it. 8 - Take good notes. Don't do as I do and get in such a hurry (that closing time comes too fast) that you note down all the information, and then don't say where you found it. Ask me about libraries in Springfield, IL, St Louis, MO, Tucson, AZ and Dallas, TX. No way to go back, no memory of where of those states I found the information and the source. 9 - You might consider designing a little form and having copies run. You can put fill in the blank columns showing location (library, clerk's office, etc), date you researched it, name of individual found, name, author and publisher of written source. Take blank family sheets or pedigree charts with you if you find a lot of information on a particular family. Blank census forms help when reading microfilm; you can enter the families nearby who might turn out to be relatives. 10 - Do NOT mark on the original records. If you find an error in someone's transcription (John Smith did NOT marry Abagail Jones!). I write down the correction on a separate piece of paper, add my name, address and phone number. I take it and the book to the clerk/librarian and ask if I can leave this in the source. WHAT TO LOOK FOR DURING YOUR VISIT. A large library or a busy clerk's office can leave our head in a spin. Here are a few things to look for at various locations. COUNTY CLERK'S OFFICE: Normally, they have: 1 - Marriages 2 - Wills 3 - Deeds 4 - Indentures to Apprenticeship 5 - Mortgages 6 - Inventories and estates 7 - Order books 8 - Guardianship bonds They may or may not have the above depending if their records are intact and they may have more. Check my previous tips on the holdings of each county office. CIRCUIT CLERK'S OFFICE: 1 - divorces 2 - any law suits Again - check my previous tips. Many courthouses are old and crowded and older records are being transferred to Frankfort. LIBRARIES: 1 - Vertical files - i.e., file cabinets. May contain a wealth of information on the town, county, state, family sheets submitted, maps. 2 - Holdings of the local historical society. Most historical societies donate copies of their books to the library which might include marriages, deaths, funeral home records, family histories, history of the county, deeds ... 3 - Microfilm holdings. Newspapers, census records, indexes of county records -old family books. This is a "once over easy" look at a few general topics that I was asked to share. The last step is the hardest. 1 - Take a deep breath 2 - Be sure before leaving home that you have all the necessities 3 - Drive carefully 4 - Park legally 5 - Walk in the door 6 - Shout Eureka! 7 - Calmly start working the records as if you'd done this all of your life! (c) 21 February 2002, Sandra K. Gorin, All Rights Reserved. sgorin@glasgow-ky.com Col. Sandi Gorin, 205 Clements, Glasgow, KY 42141 (270) 651-9114 Publishing: http://ggpublishing.tripod.com/ SCKY resource links: http://www.public.asu.edu/~moore/Gorin.html < >< God Bless America ><>