 |
Getting Started with Family History |
||||||||||
|
Copyright © 2001-2008
Tel +44 (0) 1704 512966 |
Clicking
here will open a 15 page
printable document of this section. Once you have started it printing, you can
close that window to return here.
Starting family history is like beginning to drive a car. Your success in learning to drive will depend largely upon whether your instructor can still remember what it was like when he/she was learning.
Unfortunately this is also true with family history, and many people are discouraged because the skilled craftsman they initially talk to has forgotten that he/she was once an apprentice. This is a stage-by-stage, easy to follow guide to tracing and recording a Family Tree
Researching family history can be roughly divided into four stages
The last of these is for the skilled craftsman and much has been written by them - the link will take you to our Useful Links for information beyond the immediate aim of this website. This guide is for those who are nowhere near that stage and covers the first three phases.
It is important for a beginner to remember that most of our research is based on the "law of probability." To actually prove something conclusively in many cases is impossible. To be reasonably satisfied on a range of findings is far more rewarding overall and will help you in your search for perfection as a craftsman later. If you never get any further, your family will remember you in the years to come for what you have done.
Many people are thrown into this Family History business very late - too late in many ways. Bill Suffolk, who devised this system, was an example. He was the last of his generation when he started, and consequently had no one with whom he was able to check his own memories or ask questions. With beginner's luck (which didn't hold!) his second contact in one family branch produced so much information that he realised it would take months to organise it by manual methods.
A visit to the local Reference Library produced books on genealogy dated c.1900! It would have taken weeks to absorb their contents on "how to do it the hard way" (things have changed considerably thanks to the present day interest in tracing one's roots - there are now lots of new books telling you how to do it the hard way!) Coupling that with a general complaint that his handwriting was difficult to read, Bill was sure there must be an easier way.
Traditionally, we expect Family Trees to either spread outwards from Henry VIII's six wives, or to cover a wall in a stately home. Having access to, and knowing the tremendous advantages of a word processor he spent days, stretching to weeks, trying, altering, and sometimes scrapping ideas. The problem he had was that it was, and still is, impossible to condense the usual layout of a family tree onto A4 paper in an easy-to-read manner, and no computer program can do it.
Suddenly Bill remembered a particularly difficult customer of his who refused to understand why he couldn't turn the printer head round and print down the length of the paper to provide him with something that was wider than continuous stationery. THIS was the answer - turn the tree on its side. Put the lines down the page and the names across it!
You do NOT need to buy any computer programs but it is assumed that you do have a word processor. Although there are now some good genealogy programs on the market, they do require you to be at your computer. Unless you can afford the luxury of a laptop, this is not much use to you when you are studying gravestones and Parish Records in some remote village, or talking with an elderly relative who doesn't have a computer. As you will see, the Suffolk System is completely portable, and can be used anywhere in the world - the only additional equipment you will need will be an A4 ring-binder and something to write with!
Because accuracy is more important than speed you do not need to be a trained typist. Two-finger "pickers and peckers" can easily do it. The cost of this document is the first and LAST expense for the system (apart from the binder and pencil!).
Quite frankly you can waste many hours on repetitive and time- consuming tasks if you don't use "The Suffolk System".
My father worked out this system because everything else he looked at was far too slow. It has been described as a "significant breakthrough" in the recording of Family History. It is infinitely extendable in every direction, additions being made either within each surname in the correct sequence, or added at the beginning or end, with every entry cross-referenced where necessary.
No more using rolls of wallpaper to produce an unwieldy "Bayeaux Tapestry"
And of course, with most of today's word-processors, you now have the facility to include pictures, video clips and sound-files for posterity. You can also publish directly to a website and include links to any other web page - but wonderful as this is, you STILL need to be able to take your information with you on "field trips" and that is exactly what the Suffolk System is all about - you can take all your data with you in one ring-binder, no matter how remote your research trips.
Click here to move on to Researching Familiar Ground or click one of the links below to move on from this topic.
Introduction
|
