Part 2 of the 12-step family history plan

Use the links below to find the steps.

Part 1: includes the following steps (find instructions for them here)

• Step 1: Back up your family history research
• Step 2: Log your family history research

Part 2:

Step 3: Cite your family history sources

Step 4: Going 'paperless' /digitising your family history

Step 5: Transcribe your family history records

Step 6: Share your family history 

Step 7: Learn more about family history!

Part 3: includes the following steps (find instructions for them here)

• Step 8: Make a family history research plan
• Step 9: Sorting your digital family history files
• Step 10: Time travel with your family history
• Step 11: Walk in your ancestors' footsteps
• Step 12: Reflect on your family history findings

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Step 3: Cite your family history sources

Work on your source citations. What does this even mean?

When we build our family trees, we do so based on information we find. These are our sources. We add this information to our trees. But sometimes we omit to add where we found the information. The details of where we found the information are called 'source citations'.

These are invaluable for several reasons, such as:

• enabling us to easily retrace our research steps;
• enabling others to follow in our research steps;
• and lastly for providing credibility that our research is based in evidence and facts, and not the product of wishful thinking or half-baked theories or assumptions.

To be clear, there will be many very accurate family trees, in people's homes and online, that do not show a single source. But, without those sources, you will not be able to prove to anyone else, and nor will anyone who comes after you be able to verify your research, without doing it all again themselves.

If you have family tree, as many of us do, with just a few sources added, make it a bit of a mission to gradually work through your tree adding information about the sources you've used and where you found that information.

How to go about adding sources to your existing family tree

You may like to work methodically through your family tree, working back through the generations, across the branches. Alternatively you may like to work through your family tree, concentrating on a record type at a time. For instance, ensuring you have sources and citations for each of their birth or baptism details, then repeat for their death detail, then marriages, then addresses, then occupations, and so forth. Either tactic is equally valid.

As it's likely to be an on-going project (to work on your past research adding sources and citations), the main thing is to have a methodical way of tackling it so that you can gradually nibble away, working towards an increasingly well-sourced family tree. 

Step 4: Going 'paperless' /digitising your family history

Do you have mounds of papers, bulging from drawers, toppling off tables? Do you have collections of family photos that you've been meaning to scan in or make digital copies of for a while? Do you wish to streamline the situation a little? Well, if so, this is where digitisation comes in.

How to tackle your paper mountain
You’ve taken a long time gathering and printing documents relating to your ancestors, and now have a mound of paper.
This could be disheartening to try and tackle it all in one go. For this reason, we recommend allocating a little regular time, to gradually work through your paper-based material. You could decide to work on the papers for 10 minutes a day for instance. Set a timer - and start making progress!

Important note:
• It is fine to have a paper archive. Indeed those precious original documents and old photos are treasures indeed, and need to be stored carefully in a suitable environment (not prone to damp, humidity, dust, sunlight etc).
• The paper material we are particularly focussing on in this step is the unfiled paper print-out – those copies of census records etc that you may have printed out, and may not have filed, but which may be better added to your online family tree or family history software.

How to deal with your family history print-outs if you wish to go paperless

1. Ensure that all the information in the printout has been added to your family tree (transcribing the details and adding source information)
2. Ensure that your research conclusions from the evidence in the printout has been added to your research log (see step 2)
3. If you have a paper-based filing system, file the print-out in the relevant binder.
4. If you are aiming for a digital-based filing system (ie a paperless one) either relocate the digital version of the document (eg go to the website where you originally found it, and re-find the digital copy) and add it to your online family tree, or family history software. If this is not easily achievable, take a scan or photo of the print out and attach to your online tree/family history software.

Proceed with care: Only when you have done these four points is it safe to destroy your print out.

Step 5: Transcribe your family history records

Transcribing… this may sound a bit 'old school'. What do we mean by it? And why are we recommending it to you as one of the 12 steps on your Family Tree 12-step family history research plan? Here's why.

Today's family history researchers are spoilt for choice. We suffer more from too much than too little. The ready availability of billions of digitised records online means that there is so much to discover about our ancestors at the click of a button. (And yes these digitised collections still only represent part of the riches stored in archives and repositories too).

When faced with so much information it can be easy to scour the search results, download the digitised document, and rush headlong on to the next discovery.

However, if we take time to slow down a little and transcribe what we've found, our family history research will benefit enormously.

How to transcribe a family history record

• By transcribing a document we mean that you should read and write/type everything that appears on that document.
• Include any headings on the document, include any column, row or table headings, and copy down everything on the page.
• Where you are unsure of something (the handwriting can be hard to decipher sometimes), indicate this in your copy. For instance, you could include [?] around any words you are unsure of, or [?...] for any words or phrases that you are unable to interpret at all. Doing this will flag up to you that you have clues still to unpick and work on at a future date.

What are the benefits of transcribing your family history records?

1. In the course of transcribing you will gain a feel for how far you understand the contents of the document you've found. Sometimes you won't be able to read the old handwriting. Sometimes you will find terminology or abbreviations that you don't know the meaning of. Transcribing will reveal these holes in your knowledge to you, enabling you to make a note, and find out the answer. We all have such situations and there is no shame in having to learn something.
2. In the course of transcribing you will have to work at a slower pace, and this will give you time to reflect on the details that you have found. Sometimes this information may be useful corroborative details; at other times there may be variations or inconsistencies with that which you know already. Make a note, and follow this up at a future date.
3. Transcribing a document while you are at that stage of your research affords you other benefits too: by studying the record more closely as you transcribe, you may find further clues that will inform your next research step. Working to transcribe the document there and then, or as soon as you can, means that you may be better placed to understand the document and the role that it is playing in your research process (this will enable you to concentrate particularly on the salient details in the document that are of most use to your research goal).
4. Transcribing is also of benefit for the future - both to your future self, and those who come after you, who may not be able to read the document, and who will value having the transcription to help them understand the contents of an original (or digital surrogate) document.
5. Lastly, transcribing can be invaluable in instances in which you are prevented from displaying or using a digitised image due to copyright or image reproduction licence restrictions. If you transcribe the document you can use it as you need for your family history purposes (eg in your research notes, your blog, an article, a book etc).

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Step 6: Share your family history 

This step could just as well be called 'communicate' or 'collaborate' as 'share'. The idea with this step of the Family Tree 12 Step Family History Research Plan has a few facets ...

Firstly, the aim is ensure that your family history correspondence is up to date. Is there anyone you are meaning to get back to, anyone you have promised to do something for? Have you got online messages that you need to reply to, perhaps in response to your online family tree?

Secondly, when did you last update others about your family history research? Updating others could include: sending family members a brief summary of your recent findings (be judicious, don't overwhelm them; rather tempt them with a tidbit! You never know, you may spark their interest in learning more about the family's history)

It could include writing a letter to, or article, for your local family history society (many societies are very keen to publish such information in their journals or on their social media streams if it includes information relevant to families in the local area)

It could include updating your blog or website, if you have one too, and sharing to social media, to let others know what you are up to if you wish to get the word out, perhaps seeking collaborators with whom to work, or simply seeking others with family connections or shared research interests.

Step 7: Learn more about family history!

You may wish to tackle this step on a more formal basis, viewing it as CPD (continuous professional development), identifying your 'weak spots' or key interest areas, and making specific plans to boost them. Or you may take a more informal approach, indulging in those research rabbit holes! Either option is totally valid and will enhance you as a family historian.

Family history provides us with endless fascinating opportunities to learn new things. Some of these are discovered simply through the process of doing our family history. Other aspects we may need to set aside ourselves some time to concentrate on a specific topic and learn about it. Perhaps you've long wished to learn - for instance - about an aspect of DNA, or Victorian housing, or useful background reading for learning about Agricultural Labourers in the 1700s, or the possible sources for tracing an ancestor in the Navy, or how to read old handwriting (palaeography).

In this step of the Family Tree 12 step Family History Research Plan we invite you to immerse yourself in learning more about the topic of your choice.

Take the topic from an idle point of curiosity that you've long wished to find out about, and make it a point of learning.

As ever, we encourage you to make a research plan (see Step 8) of what is is that you wish to find out about (setting yourself a research goal first, also Step 8), and then filling in your findings in a research log (step 2).

There are numerous places in which to look for freely available digitised out of copyright books, to help you accomplish background reading free of charge. Very often you may find that contemporary publications make for invaluable reading - and these often fall into the freely available digitised category too. (See for instance Google Books, Hathi Trust, Internet Archive (recently unavailable, but hopefully this is just a temporary situation) and the FamilySearch Digital Library. See Phil Isherwood's detailed guide to these resources in the December 2024 issue of Family Tree.

Search online catalogues for publications (books and journals) that fit your area of interest.

And don't forget the used-book and e-book markets, both of which can provide more affordable reading.

As most family historians know, however, a groaning bookshelf is just one of the (pleasurable) side-effects of being a genealogist. Great selections of new, very family history focussed series of publications can be found from dedicated genealogy book publishers and stores, and see also your local genealogy organisations (or those local to your research areas of interest).It's worth saying here, that, as the 12-step plan aims to provide family historians of any level experience, from all over the world, with a framework - we're not diving into lots of different websites. There are lots of other blog posts that do that, and we're trying to keep focussed in this post. (However, we couldn't resist including the digitised books' ones above, as they are free and with international coverage).

How to find the other steps of the 12-step family history plan

For Part 3 (Steps 8 to 12) of the 12-step family history plan, click here.

For Part 1 (Steps 1 to 2) of the 12-step family history plan, click here.

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