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Donating Genealogical Records

Have no doubt that your family tree research has value beyond the current generations of your own family.

Donating your family history to a local historical or genealogy group is an excellent way to make certain all of your hard work is put to good use. Local Historical Societies and Genealogy groups have a stake in preserving your records for future generations.

 

 

How to Donate Your Family Tree

If you are considering donating your family tree research the best place to start is by contacting your local library. Your local library can help you identify the archives that are best geographically suited to receive your family’s story.

Generally, community groups are interested in local reference records. However, they may have ties to other groups with broader interests such as provincial or state archives.

When donating a rather widespread family tree it may be worth considering breaking it into smaller portions focusing on specific locations.

While it is normal in a large family tree to have a significant geographical spread with ancestors coming from all corners of the globe, a local group may have limited space. Therefore, it is reasonable that they may not want to house large documents unless they are completely location specific.

What to Include with Your Donation

Along with your family tree templates or pedigree charts, you should include either originals or copies of:

• Primary and secondary source documents
• Old photos
• Vital Records
• Newspaper clippings
• Maps

Donating your family tree data is one of the best ways of sharing your genealogy and contributing to the preservation of history in your community. Not only does it help preserve your research for future generations it may be key to helping another family history researcher to break down a brick wall.

However, before you donate be sure not to part with any original items you or other members of your family may want to keep.  Lastly, make certain that all of your research conforms to The Big Five Genealogy Standards and Guidelines.

To learn more about genealogical standards sign up today for Genealogy Beginner’s 30-day free trial and receive Eight, Step-by-Step Weekly Lessons You Can Do At Your Own Pace. Starting with Lesson 1: Genealogy Standards And Guidelines.

Genealogy Standards: You Need to Know Now

You have found some intriguing information on an ancestor that has you very excited.

It is a significant event

Gives dates and places

May even promise to break through a brick wall

 

What it does not have is a proper source citation. Do you believe it or not?

I share the following story with you to demonstrate why learning to use and strictly follow the Genealogy Standards and Guidelines may be the most important lesson you learn.

Here is why Genealogybeginner.com’s Lesson 1 – The Big Five Genealogy standards and guidelines is so important!

Genealogy Believe it or Not

While working on collecting documented evidence to use in a biography for an ancestor. I ran across a web page that claimed to place my ancestor in North America 15 years earlier than previously thought. It also connected him with a notable historic person.

There are two reasons why this information is both extremely exciting and misleadingly dangerous.

Family Tree Excitement

• The source had the BDM information correct
• Another tie to this notable person and my ancestor has been well documented in government sources.

Ancestors in Danger

These two facts make the information I found plausible. However, I have not run across this particular event in any known primary or secondary source.

So, although excited to find this reference, the first thing I did was look for a source citation for the event. Sadly there was none listed, in fact there were no source citations listed for anything. Far too often this is the case and far too often misleading information is assumed to be fact by trusting, inexperienced ancestor hunters.

A Caution for the Genealogy Beginner

1. Indexes, databases and published family trees

Indexes, databases and published genealogical works are wonderful research helps when used correctly. They are not EVER to be considered sources under any circumstances. Indexed information, although associated with a primary source record, is not the record itself.

2. If you can not document the source it is simply genealogy fiction

When recording your information provide a complete and full citation of your sources. Without this information all the work you have done is simply fiction.

Everything you need to know about genealogy standards and guidelines is available to you right here at genealogybeginner.com.

Subscribe today for your need to know lesson on Genealogy Standards & Guidelines

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