May

Researching Your Family History – Ask the Experts

Posted In: Family History by Infant Care

Once you’ve exhausted all of the avenues open to you, it may be time to turn to people with specific expertise to tackle the brick wall.

The expertise may well be found within a local historical society or the local family history society. Frequently, these organisations have access to local sources that may not be available elsewhere and which could prove to be the answer to your research problem. For example, if you are having difficulty tracing your ancestor’s death, a regional society may well have access to local funeral director’s records or local council’s burial registers, both of which could record that elusive event. And, of course, many people involved in local societies know who to ask – the town’s identity with a world-class memory who may be able to remember your family when they lived in the area.

Overcoming the brick walls in your research can often be achieved by finding people with local or specialist knowledge to give you a helping hand. Again, Cora Num’s excellent gateway Web site (www.coraweb.com.au) has a comprehensive list of local family and historical societies you can check out. Many have excellent Web sites full of information to give you guidance. Another source would be the Australian Federation of Family History Organisations (www.affho.org) or, if your problem is in the UK, try the Federation of Family History Societies (www.ffhs.org.uk).

At the library of the Society of Australian Genealogists (www.sag.org.au), for example there are volunteers on duty during library hours who are able to provide assistance with using resources and helping with research problems. In many cases, these volunteers have had many years of experience and are the ‘go to’ people when you hit a brick wall, as many specialise in specific topics such as Irish research or the British in India.

Such societies have expertise that may not be confined to knowing a lot about the area in which they are based. Many local family history societies have regular meetings and seminars where you may pick up a clue from a guest speaker on topics as diverse as English Census records to NSW convict records. You often don’t have to be a member to attend these sessions – check out the latest Activities programme for the Society of Australian Genealogists on its site (www.sag.org.au) under Courses to see what it has coming up in the next few months. Remember, sometimes it is the social chat over a cup of tea that will solve a brick wall that has worried you for years! Researchers who have spent far longer than you trying to solve their own research problems are invariably willing to lend a sympathetic ear and make suggestions as to how you might be able to crack the code!