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Archiver > LONDON > 2005-08 > 1124524490


From: "Caroline Bradford" <>
Subject: RE: [Lon] How far do you branch?
Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 08:54:50 +0100
In-Reply-To: <BAY9-F393476595B93D0E2598459FB40@phx.gbl>


Hi Kim

I don't think there is a norm as such. We all have our own individual rough
policy on this. But there are two points worth mentioning:

1) Those of us who have been at this lark for some time have seen quite
staggering changes in recent years in how family history is done. This is
entirely as a result of the increase in availability of resources thanks to
modern technology. In the "old days" (which was actually only a few years
ago), every single birth, marriage or death had to be found by manually
trawling through the GRO index books. Finding a family on a census meant a
trip to the Public Record Office and working ones way through the film,
street by street. Each single branch on the tree could expect to take many
months or years of work and miles of travelling to find. And the information
had to be stored in notebooks and on index cards. It would have been
impossibly time-consuming to trace the in-laws of every great-aunt. But now
we can sometimes (!!!) trace whole families for over a century or more in
just an hour or so, and record all their details on our computers in a neat
and tidy manner.

I have to confess that some of the names on my database are incredibly
distant from my actual "tree". But what's the harm?

2)Sometimes it really is worth knowing about the wider family. If you
come up against a complete brick wall, it is often better to try and work
round it rather than banging your head against it. Following up every
nephew, niece and second cousin you can get your hands on - even tracing the
families of witnesses at marriages and informants at deaths - can sometimes
provide important clues. Even if it doesn't, it gives you something to be
getting on with!

Hope this helps

Caroline

> -----Original Message-----
> From: kim g [mailto:]
> Sent: 20 August 2005 04:43
> To:
> Subject: [Lon] How far do you branch?
>
> I would like to know how far you branch out when researching?
> Do you just follow the direct links?
> By that I mean find who the children married but dont follow the new name?
> Interested to hear what the "norm" is.
> regards
> Kim (New Zealand)
>
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