Writing down the family story

                                                 The article I found stashed in an unrelated magazine

The hunt for a family's history can be compelling, clue following clue. The search can be so engrossing sometimes that it's hard to remember to note down the sources looked at. I'm guilty of that. When I first heard of the Genealogical Proof Standard which laid out all of the steps that were necessary for a genealogist's work to be credible, I wondered who had time for that when there were so many family lines to follow. But you know, there is something to be said for writing down the steps and conclusions.

As I've written recently, I'm currently going through the stacks of magazines and other written material I have stashed away. It's taking a long time. There are lots of different stashes of magazines secreted around the place. Recently, I opened one of the magazines only to find photocopied sheets from another magazine. It was a story I'd written for Your Family Tree magazine about my own family from Islay which appeared in the March 2015 issue.

What a find! It gave the story of a few generations of my Islay family, indicated the sources I'd delved into and the conclusions I'd drawn. This magazine article is a document that brings my research on this family line into focus. And, now that I think about it, there really is something to be said for taking the time to follow the steps of the Genealogical Proof Standard, especially the part about writing it down. My source citations could use some work though.

Sources:

The Genealogical Proof Standard - https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Genealogical_Proof_Standard