Understand the Source Before You Look at the Records

An article recently published by Audrey Collins in the blog The Family Recorder contains some great advice for us. Her point is that before we get involved in looking for data in the many databases available on line now, we should be sure and check the description and especially the source of that data.

For instance, we may start to search for a birth record in a database containing Wisconsin births from 1880 to 1890, and not realize that the county we are interested in is not included. A careful reading of the the database description and the data sources could have revealed that.

This is a well-written article and is worth you time. You can find it at: The Family Recorder: Online records - never mind the description, look at the source