Mastering Genealogical Documentation

by Thomas W. Jones

A guide to learning the principles of accurate and flexible genealogical documentation for your family history. Genealogical documentation gives your work credibility. Without adequate documentation, a well-researched family history or tree looks like fiction. Mastering Genealogical Documentation teaches genealogists how to cite all kinds of sources clearly, completely, and accurately—including sources for which no model citation exists. In this new step-by-step guidebook, Dr. Thomas W. Jones presents a fresh view on the art of documentation. Readers will learn how to describe and cite their sources with artistry, clarity, conciseness, completeness, and competence so that their work will meet the genealogy field's published standards. Mastering Genealogical Documentation provides a foundation in the principles, logic, and decisions that underpin genealogical documentation. Learning principles, patterns, and logic gives genealogists flexibility and choice as they create their own structured documentation. This essential text offers exercises at the end of each chapter (with answers at the back of the book) to reinforce concepts and provide opportunities for practice.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Thomas Jones has co-edited the National Genealogical Society Quarterly since 2002, and he is the author of Mastering Genealogical Proof. He serves the Board for Certification of Genealogists as trustee and is a past president. He is the 2011 recipient of the Association of Professional Genealogists' Professional Achievement Award, 2004 recipient of its Grahame T. Smallwood Jr. Award of Merit, and 1997 and 2002 winner of the National Genealogical Society Award for Excellence for articles in the NGS Quarterly. He has been certified since 1994. A professor emeritus at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., he is a genealogical educator who speaks and writes frequently on genealogical evidence, proof, and problem solving. Personal and professional genealogical research since 1964 has taken Jones to records of all states east of the Mississippi plus Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Texas.

His experience includes on-site research in courthouses, libraries, and archives in most of those states, the Family History Library, and other major genealogical repositories. He also has conducted research in records of France, Germany, and Ireland, and on-site research in Ireland. His specialties, however, are Georgia, Ireland, and Virginia.

Reviews

[Brad Garton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about mastering genealogical SOURCE documentation. This has been the most difficult aspect of genealogy for me to understand. This book and evidence explained give lots of thorough examples that can help to begin to understand how to document the vast categories of sources you can encounter in doing genealogy. This book like others by this author is arranged as a textbook with exercises to complete at the end of each chapter. After reading a few books and the BCG standards,this topic is still difficult for me,but this book was helpful in that it gave detailed reading behind the choices for different forms of source citations. As explained in the last chapter,this is probably one of the most challenging aspects of genealogy, but this book and the other references suggested in the books give a path to becoming confident and competent in making documentation choices. The goal is to get to the point where the best choices are made almost automatically. This text is a step in the path to get there.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent supplement to "Evidence Explained" by Elizabeth Shown Mills. While "Evidence Explained" is a wonderful reference book with two excellent introductory chapters, "Mastering Genealogical Documentation" completely breaks down citations to their most basic elements. In the process, you really are able to realize where you do and don't have flexibility with citations as well as the logic and rationale behind the citation choices you make. Furthermore, Tom Jones simply has a fantastic instructional and straightforward writing style. A lot of ground is covered and the text could easily be re-read/referenced multiple times, but he does not assume any prior knowledge so the basics and even the smallest of details are addressed.

[Trudy Pomerantz]

I did not find this book particularly helpful. However, it has been many years since I did footnoting and genealogical documentation is considerably more difficult than documenting results from scientific literature. I ended up deciding to almost skim read the second half in the hope that I would at least gain something from it. I don't think I can fairly evaluate whether it may effectively help someone else master genealogical documentation, but I know that I did not find it particularly helpful. I feel like it might be helpful once I have mastered more of the basics - but I was hoping this book would help me master the basics.

[Georgene · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are serious about genealogy, then you need to learn how to document your sources. And you need to read this book. Every word is important so it is a good book to own and refer to. The exercises at the end of each chapter are very helpful for practicing the concepts learned in the chapter. This is a required textbook for the Boston University online Genealogical Research course.

[Lynette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thorough, but some parts are pretty repetitive. This will tell you how to figure out how to cite certain items, but in my experience, Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills is actually helpful in showing examples of citations.

[Jane Irish Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This excellent text book helps the genealogical researcher and writing to understand the how and why of documentation, along with the various nuances required by different types of records. Highly recommended.

[KF-in-Georgia]

For a study group taught by Cyndi Ingle.

This week, Chapters 6, 7, and 8 nearly killed me. Next week, Chapters 9 and 10.

[Ivy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great textbook to have on your bookshelf for doing genealogy. There are questions to answer at the end of each chapter to ensure you understand the importance of what you learned.

[Rebekah Berman]

I learned a great deal; however, I am not a fan of the way Thomas Jones writes. I find it difficult to understand and not terribly organized in presentation.