Write Your Own Research Guide

When planning research in a new place, many of us have consulted the FamilySearch Research Wiki, and have collected books which cover states or regions where we find our ancestors and their friends, associates and neighbors. On this blog we've discussed creating a checklist to ensure that we don't overlook useful resources to answer our research questions.

Reusable locality research guide is a map to success

Recently, advice to create our own locality research guides seem to be popping up everywhere, which takes the checklist concept to a whole new level. The recent National Genealogical Society Magazine, had "Creating and Using Locality Guides as Genealogy Tools" by Jan Joyce. The article itself is available to NGS Members or from the magazine itself, but fortunately her case study and examples are available here for everyone. Holmes County, Indiana is shown but the principles are the same for every locality. 

Challenge Accepted!

Counties surrounding Decatur

So I've started one for Decatur County, Iowa, where so many of my McBees, Willises and Smiths lived for some years, and where my third great-grandfather George Henry McBee died. After just a few hours work, I'm already learning so much. The map to the right already showed me why they seemed to move back and forth between Decatur and Harrison County Missouri so often! 

Check out the research guide in progress here. 

Before the Internet, I bought The Handy Guide for Genealogists, and found it endlessly useful. Others preferred the Red Book or The Source. However, all of these were general, with a small section for each county in every US state. I also bought books about Swedish records and some German books. But these books are too heavy to carry on research trips! In contrast, each guide you build for yourself lives online with clickable links, available to you whenever and wherever you are. It will change over time as you discover new resources and URLs change. It should include what you want, what you need, and leave out everything else. If you use them, list the books on your shelf, for instance.

How To Begin

In the NGS Magazine article, Joyce includes five steps to building a guide:

• Target a Location
• Literature Review
• Write the Guide
• Use the Guide
• Refine

The book Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist's Guide also suggests creating a locality guide. This book by Diana Elder will be the focus of our Study Group* this fall. A blog post at https://www.patentlyhistorical.com/post/location-location-location-how-to-create-a-research-locality-guide summarizes some of the suggestions from Elder's book.

Cari A. Taplin, CG who blogs as Genealogy Pants [1] suggests organizing it in four sections:

1. Historical Background – major historical items of interest, especially those that might affect records, migration, and industry
2. Geography – maps, maps, and maps; understanding the physical layout of a place helps understand ancestors
3. Records – what major record sets are available, both online and off
4. Repositories – what libraries, archives, museums, etc. are available for onsite research

When Elizabeth Shown Mills describes her literature review, it sounds like locality research guide to me! She even transcribes important sections of the law (with citations, of course) she thinks that she will need to quote as part of her proof argument. Now that is efficiency. 

But don't write your guide to please the experts! The research guide you create will help YOU in YOUR research, over and over again.

Resources to help you create your own locality research guide

• Elder, Diana, and Nicole Dyer, “Locality Research,” Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist’s Guide (Highland, Utah: Family Locket Books, 2018), 46-60.  
• ________, hosts, “RLP 4: Locality Research Part 1.” Research Like a Pro Genealogy Podcast (podcast), 6 August 2018, accessed 16 March 2022, 
• https://familylocket.com/rlp-4-locality-research-part-1/.  Additional podcast episodes that mention creating or use of a locality guide include: 5, 50, 85, 87, 115, 150, and 175.
• “FamilySearch Research Wiki: A Genealogy Resource Guide,”  FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Main_Page : accessed 16 July 2022), database, updated 26 April 2022.   
• Henderson, Harold, “Research Procedures,” Elizabeth Shown Mills, editor, Professional Genealogy: Preparation, Practice & Standards, Volume 2 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2018), 317-336, particularly 319-324.  
• “Research Reference Guide,” International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (https://www.icapgen.org/become-accredited/research-reference-guide/ : accessed 16 July 2022), online article.  
• “Research Outlines,” FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Main_Page : accessed 16 July 2022), online article, updated 14 May 2020.  
• Stoddard, Julie, “Creating a Research Reference Guide,” ICAPGen, 4 October 2018, educational video, 20:13, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXG7UXkq1YQ : accessed 216 March 2022).  
• Taplin, Cari, “Building a Locality Guide: Miscellaneous Stuff,” Genealogy Pants (blog), posted 11 August 2021 (https://genealogypants.com/category/research-general/locality-guides/ : accessed 16 July 2022).  
• Taylor, Mindy “Using Locality Research to Solve Complex Problems, ICAPGen, 1 October 2021, educational video, 54:33, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8VPOCOgxXU : accessed 16 July 2022.)  

1. Building a Locality Guide: The Sections: May 26, 2021; accessed 16 July 2022.

* Study Group this fall and winter will be SKCGS Members only. http://skcgs.org/membership.html

Valorie Zimmerman