Once again Meryl and Audrey provided an
informative, entertaining and amusing evening for
the membership.
Meryl took the part of an expert researcher,
and Audrey the part of an absolute beginner, who
had managed to produced a family tree compiled
from the telephone directory, and had almost
certainly ended up on a branch of someone else’s
tree.
They then took us through the various means of
researching a tree correctly:-
- Start by talking to relatives,
even those you don’t expect to have
any information, you may be pleasantly
surprised at the information they can
provide
- Get the best out of Record Offices
- what to do and not do within the
various offices, plus how to ask for help
from the staff.
- Checking all information found
in various census returns and the IGI.
- Obtain certificates to validate
information found.
- Storing work in a systematic way,
so that not only the researcher but also
their next of kin can understand the
information. A good filing system can
make it easy to check information without
having to hunt through scraps of
paper which can be easily lost.
Meryl and Audrey provided the membership with
a great deal of information in a light and easy
to remember way which was enjoyable for all those
who attended the meeting.
