What is a Reasonably Exhaustive Genealogy Research?

What is reasonably exhaustive genealogical research?

According to the Genealogy Standards, Genealogists attempt to collect all information potentially relevant to the questions they investigate for all evidence that might answer a research question about an identity, relationship, event, or situation.

Jerry Carbone and Wayne Blanchard will present some case studies that follow the procedures to do a reasonably exhaustive search. We’ll start with what we know about an individual or a family. Using a known name, place and time, we create a research question. The focus is usually finding out who the people were and who was related to them. The problem we want to solve determines what the search looks like. The patterns of the people’s lives opens up possible research paths and the types of sources to search. They would have had dealings with government agencies and perhaps religious institutions. They may have served in the military or participated in social clubs. Maybe something was written about them in the newspaper. Depending on how wealthy or poor they were, they have have left a legacy in the form of their belongings or land.

Looking at these factors helps to determine the direction of the search. Many sources may give us clues to answer our research question. But we really want to find original records provided by people who are close as possible to events in question. Then we need to evaluate what we have found to see how well it correlates with information we already know. If the sources conflict with each other we may need to do additional research to arrive at a conclusion that answers our research question.

WCGIG is also supported by Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro, Vt. and Rockingham Free Library in Bellows Falls, Vt. with use of their Zoom accounts, publicity, and use of facilities when in person meetings are warranted.

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