Helpful Tips and Hints
- Chuck
Dillman - Have a relative who is an eager searcher accompany you on your trips to the library or court
house.
- Toby Hurley - Use a mirror to read hard to read
tombstones.
- Raygena Garringer - Never throw anything
away.
- Use flour to fill in worn lettering on
tombstones. Raygena stressed even though flour is biodegradeable it is our responsibility to clean the
stone of all flour and to take as much of it as possible from the grave site before leaving.
- Read and reread all documents - many little
clues are overlooked on previous readings.
- Daniel Dillman - When stuck on your main
research take a break and research a side line.
- The internet is your friend. If you are not
techno-friendly, take a class through a local university or college.
- Allen Dillman - Read newspaper obituaries as a
follow up on genealogy research.
- Harriet Dillman - Record your, children's and
grand children's oral history. They may not be interested in genealogy now yet the recording will be a
great research when they are interested.
- Raymond Welch - When you are researching in a
library take a couple of interested family members with you who can "browse" and are not focused on one or
two items as we probably will be. You'll be surprised at what they will find on those genealogy shelves
that you might overlook.
- Barb Welch - Ask at the court house where you
are researching if they have a genealogist either volunteer or employed. They are extremely helpful.
- Phil Dillman - Frequently back up or print
copies of computer files. Computers do crash!
- Tom Tackett - Talk to everybody for their tips:
locals, visitor centers, etc. If they don't know about your line they might give you a lead.
- Sue Gail Tackett - Document even the most
trivial bit of information.
- Keep the story alive. Tell your children and
grandchildren (whether they want to hear or not) maybe someone down the line will remembers something and
pick up the ball.
- Put yourself in the picture at gravesites (for
future generations.)
- Joye Dillman - Become a map reader. State maps -
early, historical, county plat books. Don't forget to visit the map rooms of the Library of Congress.
- Judy Hudson - Document the Document. Write down
the source be it a book, a person etc, the page number, the date, the place found such as Crawford County
Library city and state.