I have a lot of trees that I have been working on for friends and have wondered what the best way would be to share my research with them. There are several types of reports that genealogists use that can help share the details of my research with people, but I think the best one for the work I’ve been doing so far is a hybrid of a narrative family history and a general report that includes all the records.
The hybrid nature of the reports I plan on doing bring in important features of the reports I mentioned above.
- General Research Report – The reason I am not specifically doing a typical report is because I’m starting out with trees that have several generations that are easily found without needing to write up a detailed report with research questions. There will likely come a time when I work on someone’s tree who has a brick wall they need me to work on, but right now my focus is on sharing the story of the ancestors. What will be included are:
- The records that I find for each direct ancestor.
- Further research suggestions.
- Narrative Family History – The reason I have chosen this as my main focus of my reports is that I plan on including information from secondary sources that fills in the blanks for the family. One example is in a report I have been working on recently. A client’s Dutch ancestor’s WWII military records show his education. It shows he did 7 years at L.O., 3 years at M.M.L.O., and 2 years at an advanced school. Through research I was able to find out details about the Dutch education system in the early 1900s and explain what each of these acronyms meant and explain what their ancestor likely studied. This part of the report would also include a compiled lineage. Emphasis will be put on the direct ancestor of the client unless there are interesting bits of information related to the direct ancestor’s other children. One good part about using a compiled lineage also means that a client can visualize who all the children of their direct ancestors were. I may do more of a family group sheet here instead of a Burke’s Peerage format, but it could be a mix of the two. Each direct ancestor will have a profile specifically about their life. I need to figure out how I will combine the stories of both the husband and the wife together, possibly a chapter on both of their lives.
My very first report is for one of my high school English teachers who is now a friend of mine. I chose her because she is mostly Dutch, like me, but the difference is she is also Jewish. I am learning how to access Amsterdam and North Holland archives and am learning more about the Jewish experience in the Netherlands. Of all the international genealogy research I’ve done I feel most comfortable working with Dutch archives because of all the work I’ve done with my own family. Another reason is that I have the support of an online community of Dutch genealogists. And a few of them have done research on Dutch Jews so that will help me a lot.
On Their Shoulders 