Before You Search, See if the Records Exist

James Tanner gives us a thoughtful piece in his blog “Genealogy’s Star.” He differentiates the task of searching for a name and the task of searching for a record.  The bottom line is that we spend a lot of time searching by our ancestor's name, not knowing whether the type of record we are searching for even exists.  Becoming knowledgeable about what records exist in what timeframes will save us time and frustration when we get to the point of the name search.

James has a lot more to say on this topic. Read it all at Genealogy's Star: Realistic Record Availability