Familiar Record Practices: Problems and Terminology in American Genealogy

In order to be a good genealogist you must be familiar with the basics
of genealogy. Every field of study—whether physics, chemistry, sociology,

medicine, law, art, photography, or genealogy—has its own basic
vocabulary or jargon and its own rules. To succeed in any field of study you must know those rules.


I have a friend who comes from Sweden, so when I encounter a term in
my Swedish research that I do not understand, I call and ask him about it.
Often the term is not familiar to him even though he was born and raised
in that country. This is not a problem of his not understanding Swedish but
rather of his not having the vocabulary needed by the genealogist. We can
toss out certain English language terms to the man on the street here in
America, too, with the same result.

Thus the purpose for the next few blogs is to help bridge the gap across some of the more common problem terms and also to look carefully at other practices and problems inherent in American genealogical research.
Technorati Tags: Genealogy,basics