Need Research Log
It would be really helpful if we had a research log (table format) that is anchored to the top of the Collaboration tab where everyone working on the family could enter each search they completed and what was/was not found. Would really help reduce duplication of effort.
Thanks!
Sheryl Neal Slaughter
Comments
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I agree with Sheryl Neal Slaughter, and wanted to add some more commentary about the same.
If we had the ability to create research tables to do our own individual research and log where we have looked, how we have looked, and what we have looked for, and the ability to compare things side by side, then that would help us research more correctly and professionally according to Genealogical Proof Standard. If the common genealogy hobbiests could learn to use GPS, that would help everyone!
I'd also like to find and write down a list of places to look, either from the research wiki or from sources I have listed in genealogy books at my house. This way, I can go through the list one at a time and look through it. If we could use the same list to note what we found or didn't find in each location, that would be wonderful.
I would like to be able to do such research without it being changeable by others. I would like it if I didn't have to have a family tree connection to a person to research them in such a way. This way, I can compare 10 persons with the same name living in the same city or county in the same time period, to each other. Or this way, I could compare possible parents of one person to decide which are a person's correct parents, without changing the public tree.
I would like it if we could flag conflicting evidence and then have a way to research each possiblility to resolve the conflict.
I would like it if there were a form we could fill out to create a genealogical research proof for each question, issue, and problem we find.
If everyone could have and use such GPS-encouraging features, it would help everyone in the familysearch community and would help the public tree so that it could be less frustrating and more accurate. That is because people could have a way to research correctly according to the Genealogical Proof Standard, before adding data to the public tree.
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Wow. I see this as another opportunity for people who don't know what they're doing. There are tons of research logs out there, and I'm sure not everyone uses the same one. Use your research log of choice privately. The trees are so messed up now, I don't rely on them for facts, only clues that I need to corroborate with original documents or copies of original documents.
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To be honest, I think a research log would be very beneficial for the negative information, not necessarily for the positive information. For the positive information, you found a record, so a source should be created. For negative information - such as I looked through the collection of deeds, and there are no records digitized or indexed from 1800 to 1836 - that statement in the log, along with url, could be useful later when perhaps more records have been digitized, and now additional records of interest are included in the collection. An argument could be made that notes fulfill this function. I believe I will start adding this kind of information to notes for people I am already tracking in spreadsheets. (I am indeed missing early 1800 land record images for a person of interest.)
Notes would also satisfy @Sharon Sinclair as she wouldn't have the notes "in her face" so to speak. I also agree completely that research logs are extremely customized. I am a volunteer researcher and do both lineage research for a lineage society and historical research for a historical preservation society. Those are SO different!
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What would be the difference between the Notes we already have and a research log? Couldn't a research log be kept in the Notes fields that already exist in the program?
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@HESM the main difference is it could be a pre-formatted template with standard rows and columns. I would like to see the ability to add a note/source into a Planner> Plans - that would simplify the process. But still a pre-formatted/editable log would be nice.
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