Personally traveling to the location where your much needed records can be found is still the best way of acquiring your ancestors’ records. However, not all has the luxury of time and money to travel wherever the research takes us. Thus, it is important to know how to write a letter of request for a particular record from archives, libraries, record offices and courthouses, genealogical societies, family history centers and other record repositories.

Tips to ensure a response to your letter:

•    Be courteous. Say “please”, “kindly” and “thank you”. Politeness pays.

• Keep your letter short and simple. Do not be too wordy. Write everything you need in the shortest possible words including the information that can aid the searcher find the records fast. A letter that produces result is that which can be understood at one glance.

Gathering accurate dates of significant family events is an important element of a good genealogy research. Here are the genealogical standards of date recording:

1.    Use the European standard when recording dates, where date comes first, followed by the month (spelled out) and the four-digit year. Example: 21 January, 1933. This is quite different from the usual way Americans write down date. Do not write the date in figures as 5/3/04 or 5-3-04. Readers (you included) can interpret it as May 3 or March 5, 1804, 1904 or 2004.

2.    Genealogists usually spell out the months but accepted abbreviations can also be used:
•    Jan. for January
•    Feb. for February
•    Mar. for March
•    Apr. for April
•    Aug. for August
•    Sept. for… Continue reading Genealogy Basics: Recording Dates

With just a wrong data, misinformation, bad assumption and wrong direction, your search can go into a slump. Though mistakes are hard to avoid, these steps can keep you on the right track:

Review all additional information over and over again
Check for conflicting information such as date gaps and location. Does your research have 2 siblings that are less than 9 months apart? Are children born ahead of their parents? Does the listed place of birth match with the information you know about your ancestors? As simple as it may seem, these are the details that are commonly overlooked so keep it checked.

Start with your parents
Going directly to your grandparents, starting with a famous person that is said to be related to you… Continue reading Genealogy: How NOT to Land on Different Family Tree