Category: Advice

Advice, Methodology

Complex Genealogy Timelines with AI

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Creating simple genealogy timelines with AI works well, but family history research often requires more complex approaches. You need timelines spanning multiple generations, combining different family groups, or analysing extensive descendancy data.

My experiments with complex genealogy timelines revealed significant differences between AI tools. Some handle complexity brilliantly, while others fail completely. This post shares my findings and shows you how to create useful complex timelines for research planning and problem-solving.

Quick Recap: Where We Left Off

In my previous post, I showed you how AI can create simple timelines for individuals and their immediate families. The key findings were:

  • Format matters: Structured reports from family history software work better than web-based PDFs as input data
  • Instructions are crucial: Clear prompts minimise common interpretation errors
  • Quality varies by tool: Different AI tools have different strengths and weaknesses.

For simple timelines, all three tested tools (ChatGPT 4o, Google Gemini 2.0, and Claude Sonnet) performed well with properly formatted data. But complexity changes everything.

Why Complex Timelines Matter

Complex genealogy timelines serve different research purposes than simple ones:

  • Multi-generational analysis: Track family patterns across time and place
  • Problem-solving: Identify inconsistencies, conflicts and gaps in your research or the data
  • Research planning: Visualise what you know versus what you need to find
  • Family group studies: Understand relationships between families.

The timelines available in online family trees and family history software are limited. You get basic birth-death information, usually in PDF format only. For serious research, you need customisable timelines with complete event data in editable formats.

My Systematic Testing Approach

I needed to understand where each AI tool reaches its limits. My goal was finding a process that generates accurate timelines efficiently, without a lot of error correction.

I tested increasingly complex document formats to identify the breaking point where AI makes too many mistakes. When a tool struggled, I tried alternative approaches to see if different methods resolved the problems.

AI Tools Tested:

  • ChatGPT 4o (paid)
  • Google Gemini 2.0 (free)
  • Claude Sonnet (paid)

Document Formats Tested:

  • Family tree chart: Legacy Family Tree PDF, five generations, 28 people
  • Medium complexity report: Legacy descendancy report PDF, 11 pages, 3 generations, 47 people, 159 events
  • High complexity report: Legacy descendancy report PDF, 15 pages, 3 generations, 238 people, 249 events

I used the same prompt from my simple timeline experiments, with modifications based on those findings. I added a unique identifier column to distinguish between people of the same name. And I provided specific guidance for interpreting residence events, as errors were common for this event type.

Results: The Complexity Breaking Point

Document TypeChatGPT 4oGoogle GeminiClaude Sonnet
Family tree chart PDFFailedFailedFailed
Medium complexity reportVariable results100% success100% success
High complexity reportFailed100% success90% success

Family Tree Charts: Universal Failure

Family tree charts in PDF format proved impossible for all three tools. ChatGPT extracted no usable data. Gemini and Claude extracted some correct information but omitted people, missed events, and included incorrect data.

Even when I provided examples of correct interpretations, Claude couldn’t apply those examples consistently across the chart. The visual layout and graphical elements appear to make these documents unsuitable for AI timeline creation. However, I will be conducting more tests as it would be particularly useful if successful.

extract of a family tree chart showing seven individuals across three generations
Family tree charts are difficult for AI to interpret accurately

Medium Complexity: Clear Winners Emerge

This is where tool differences became apparent:

ChatGPT produced variable results. It managed one 2-generation, 9-page report successfully but omitted residence events. Other similar reports contained numerous errors, making results unreliable.

Gemini and Claude both produced high-quality timelines consistently. Gemini included some unrequested event types, but the core timeline data was accurate.

High Complexity: The Real Test

ChatGPT struggled even when I broke complex reports into smaller parts, feeding it one generation at a time. The error rate remained unacceptably high for research purposes.

Gemini maintained 100% success rate even with the most complex documents, though it sometimes included event types not requested in the prompt.

Claude achieved 90% success rate. It occasionally missed events but responded well to correction prompts, fixing errors when they were pointed out.

extract from a genealogy timeline showing events that were not requested for inclusioin
Gemini added event types that were not requested, which is not as bad as omitting events, but not ideal.

Common Problems and Solutions

Understand Error Patterns

Errors often follow discernible patterns. In my experiments these included:

  • All events before a certain year omitted
  • All marriages excluded
  • Data appearing in wrong columns when locations weren’t specified
  • Events omitted when separated from names by page breaks.

Identifying these patterns helps you prompt AI for specific corrections and may help you improve the data input for future situations.

Input Data Issues

Sometimes the problem isn’t AI interpretation but your source data. I discovered Legacy Family Tree had started omitting marriage dates from reports, which explained why both Claude and Gemini excluded these events. Always verify your input data quality first.

Quality Control Strategy

Check AI output systematically:

  1. Download the timeline into Excel
  2. Apply filters by person’s name
  3. Review events for each individual separately
  4. Look for obvious gaps or inconsistencies.

If quality control takes excessive time, the AI tool isn’t worth using. High error rates defeat the time-saving purpose.

Optimising Your Approach

Adjust Your Prompting

For complex timelines, I made these prompt modifications:

  • Added unique identifier column requirements
  • Provided specific residence event interpretation guidance
  • Included examples of correct date handling for approximate dates.

When asking for error corrections, describe the problem and provide 1-2 specific examples. If AI struggles, ask it to explain the difficulty and discuss alternative approaches.

Find the Complexity Sweet Spot

More data doesn’t always mean better results. Increasing complexity can increase error rates and processing time, negating time savings.

My testing for these data formats suggests the complexity limit lies around 160-250 events. Beyond this, error rates increase significantly. Gemini handles higher complexity better than the other tools, but I wouldn’t exceed 250 events in a single request.

Optimisation strategies:

  • Exclude unnecessary data (such as indexes)
  • Break very large datasets into logical chunks
  • Focus on event types that are essential for your research objectives.

Format Considerations

  • Text-based PDFs work best: Structured reports from family history software
  • Avoid image-based documents: Family tree charts, scanned documents
  • Consistent formatting helps: Improve data entry in your family tree.

Practical Recommendations

For medium complexity projects (under 160 events): Gemini or Claude both work well. Choose based on your preferences.

For high complexity projects (160-250 events): Gemini shows superior performance, but Claude works well with careful quality control.

Avoid ChatGPT for complex genealogy timelines. Its inconsistent performance makes it unsuitable for research purposes.

Always prepare fallback approaches: If your preferred tool struggles with specific data, try alternative formatting or different tools.

What This Means for Your Research

AI can definitely accelerate complex timeline creation, but success requires:

  1. Realistic expectations: Understand your chosen tool’s limitations
  2. Proper preparation: Use structured, text-based input data
  3. Strategic complexity management: Stay within the 160-250 event range (or 11-15 A4 pages)
  4. Systematic quality control: Check results methodically.

Complex AI-generated timelines can support your family history research, but they’re not magic solutions. They require the same critical thinking and verification you’d apply to any research tool.

Looking Ahead

My experiments continue, focusing on:

  • Including source citations in AI-generated timelines
  • Using timelines for specific genealogical problem-solving scenarios
  • Optimising prompts for different research purposes.

In another post, I’ll explore real-world case studies using AI timelines to solve specific genealogical problems.

The key takeaway: AI can handle complex genealogy timelines effectively, but tool selection and proper preparation determine success.

If you’re not already using family history software, Legacy Family Tree is free.

If you want to learn more about using timelines in genealogy, start with this post: Use Genealogy Timelines to Organise, Analyse and Improve Your Research.

About the Author

Danielle Lautrec is a genealogy educator, researcher, and author of The Good Genealogist. With qualifications in history, family history, and historical archaeology, she teaches for the Society of Australian Genealogists.

Advice, Methodology

Create a Genealogy Timeline with AI: Getting Started

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Timelines are essential in family history research, but creating them manually is time-consuming. You need to gather data, enter it into tables, and organise everything chronologically.

AI can help with this process. It extracts data from your family history documents, analyses it, creates tables, and orders events by date.

I’ve tested this approach to discover what works and what doesn’t. This post shares my findings and shows you how to get started with simple genealogy timelines. Later posts will examine more complex timelines for research problem solving and discuss in more detail how to optimise the prompt and input data for best results.

Why Use Genealogy Timelines

Timelines place people in time and space. They help you:

  • Clarify identities and solve research problems
  • Expose gaps and inconsistencies in your data
  • Organise information for better research planning
  • Create engaging family narratives.

If you’re not using timelines yet, read my article Use Genealogy Timelines to Organise, Analyse and Improve Your Research for a discussion of the benefits and uses for genealogy timelines.

The Timeline Problem

Online family trees and family history software create limited timelines. You might get a timeline for one person with their immediate family, but events for the family are limited to birth and death. The format is usually PDF-only, which means no editing in Excel.

This limits their value for family history research. You have limited control over what data gets included and can’t make adjustments afterward.

Creating custom timelines manually means extracting data from your software, entering it into spreadsheets, and organising it chronologically. It’s tedious work that’s prone to errors.

What AI Can Do for Timeline Creation

AI excels at three key tasks:

  1. Extract data from documents and format it into tables
  2. Organise events chronologically to create proper timelines
  3. Convert results into Excel-compatible formats.

AI can also provide historical context and suggest research directions, but I’ll focus on the core timeline creation process here.

Before You Start: Essential Preparation

Protect Privacy First

Always exclude living people from any data you share with AI tools. Check your software settings and review reports to ensure no personal information about yourself or living relatives gets included.

In Legacy Family Tree, you can suppress the names of living people or exclude them totally.

Decide Your Timeline Content and Format

Consider what information you need:

  • Dates: Full dates or years only? How should approximate dates (abt. 1832) or spans (1841-1844) be handled?
  • Events: Birth, death, marriage are standard, but baptism and burial are useful too. Include residence, or occupation events?
  • Names: Full names in one column or separate surname column?
  • Locations: Complete location in one column or split into separate columns?
  • Citations: Useful, but I left them out in these simple timelines.

I also recommend including a unique identifier column to distinguish between people with the same name.

For more tips on genealogy timelines, see my article Excel Genealogy Timelines: Complete How To Guide.

Testing Different AI Tools and Formats

I tested three AI tools with different document formats:

AI Tools Tested:

  • ChatGPT 4o (paid)
  • Google Gemini 2.0 (free)
  • Claude Sonnet (paid)

Document Formats Tested:

  • Ancestry individual profiles (PDF and text)
  • Legacy Family Tree individual reports (PDF)
  • Legacy Family Tree family group sheets (PDF)

The Prompt That Works

Here’s the prompt I developed through testing:

‘Please extract all birth, baptism, marriage, death, burial, and residence events from the following report. Include only events where dates and locations are explicitly stated – no assumptions. Present results in a table with four columns: Date, Type of Event, Location, and Name of the Person. Sort chronologically by date. Omit any index or row numbers. If a date is approximate (e.g. ‘Abt.’, ‘Bef.’, ‘After’), retain the original text but sort chronologically based on interpreted value.’

For software-generated reports with unique identifiers, I added:

‘Please add another column called RIN. This is the unique identifier number for a person. You will find that number in square brackets after a person’s name. Add the RIN for each person in this new column.’

Results: What Worked and What Didn’t

Document TypeChatGPT 4oGoogle GeminiClaude Sonnet
Ancestry Individual profile PDFFailed100% Success100% Success
Ancestry Individual profile Text100% SuccessNot testedNot tested
Legacy Individual profile PDF100% Success100% Success100% Success
Legacy Family Sheet PDF100% Success100% Success100% Success

Key Findings:

Format matters. Image-based PDF documents and PDF documents from web pages (like Ancestry) can be problematic. They can be difficult to search; have overlapping elements or graphics; and may include OCR (Optical Character Recognition) text that is less accurate. ChatGPT struggled with these and could only interpret the data when it was converted to text format by copying and pasting.

John Beaumont has a great video about PDF issues and AI, if you need to know more.

Structure helps. Reports from family history software work best because they’re already consistently formatted.

Instructions are crucial. AI tools interpreted standard events (birth, death, marriage) accurately but needed guidance with residence events that appeared in different formats.

Example additional guidance provided:

‘You have not listed any residence events. I think you had trouble because they have been expressed in a few different ways. There are events in the document that say ‘resided at [address] in [year] in [location]’; others say ‘had a residence in [year] in [location]’. Can you see if you can extract those ones and add them to the timeline?’

Google Gemini performed particularly well, correctly interpreting events as residence events even where the word residence was not mentioned. For example, it assumed that a religion event with a date and location indicated residence.

Quality Control: Review Your Results

Always check AI-generated timelines, even when they look perfect. Common issues include:

  • Minor errors: Events slightly out of chronological order
  • Major errors: Missing events, wrong people, or invented information.
Extract from a timeline created by ChatGPT. The family never left Essex England yet has events in Australia and Kent. Elizabeth Rice is fictional and the events are not sorted chronologically.

ChatGPT’s failure with the Ancestry PDF was spectacular. It invented people, changed locations, and created fictional events and people. When I pointed out errors, it created even more problems. This shows why testing different AI tools matters.

Quick Tips for Success

  1. Start simple with individual or family group reports
  2. Use structured data from family history software when possible
  3. Test different AI tools if one doesn’t work well
  4. Review results carefully before using the timeline
  5. Refine your prompt based on your specific data format.

What’s Next

Simple timelines work well with AI, but what about complex family research? In Complex Genealogy Timelines with AI, I explore multi-generational timelines and solving the errors that arise with more complex data.

The key takeaway: AI can dramatically speed up creation of genealogy timelines, but success depends on preparation, the right tools, and careful review of results.

About the Author

Danielle Lautrec is a genealogy educator, researcher, and author of The Good Genealogist. With qualifications in history, family history, and historical archaeology, she teaches for the Society of Australian Genealogists.

Advice, Methodology

How to solve a genealogy research problem, with tools

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Family history frequently presents research problems. While online sources make information more accessible, interpreting that information can be a challenge. That challenge can be made easier if you have a systematic process and tools for solving genealogy research problems.

Genealogy research process

Firstly, make sure that you are following the five-step research cycle.

Process diagram showing 5 steps in the research process. Step 1 Goals, Step 2 Scoping, Step 3 Tasks, Step 4 Research, Step 5 Review
The Research Process (Source: The Good Genealogist, D. Lautrec 2022)

Research process steps:

  1. Identify your aims, objectives, research questions and hypotheses
  2. Scope to review the state of knowledge about your topic and the sources available
  3. Identify the information needed and the sources that may provide that information
  4. Conduct research
  5. Review

If you need more information about the research process, check the articles on the Plan page and Chapter 2 of my book, The Good Genealogist.

Genealogy research problem solving process and tools

This research process works well in most situations. However, sometimes you need to add a problem solving process. And you need tools to help you with each step.

Step 1 – Clarify

Revisit step 1 of the research process to review your research questions and hypotheses.

Make sure that your questions sit under relevant aims and objectives. Aims and objectives provide important context for your questions. They help clarify why the questions need to be answered and may even demonstrate that your questions need to change.

Try wording the questions differently. If you are not already working with hypotheses, generate some for each research question.

Tool:

Step 2 – Scope

Revisit step 2 of the research process and re-scope the problem.

Examine the sources and information again. Analyse your conclusions and the evidence. Consider whether the conclusions are reasonable and defensible. Examine whether there are gaps or inconsistencies that you missed the first time.

Tools:

  • Revise your scoping paper if you already have one, or write one if you do not.
  • Try transcribing key sources. This may help you notice details that you missed when reading.
  • Apply the Tree Health Assessment Tool to your tree. If you have already created the chart version, now create a table version examining more of the information in your tree.
  • Revise the evidence summaries for relevant conclusions (aka proof summaries), or write some if you do not have any. (see The Good Genealogist)
Four generation family tree chart in fan format, coloured green yellow and pink based on the amount of evidence for each person and relationship.
Example of a Tree Health Assessment chart. Green indicates good evidence, yellow indicates some evidence, pink indicates no evidence.

Step 3 – Fix

Research problems often occur as a result of errors made in previous research.

You must have a Solid Foundation. Identify any errors, inaccuracies or weaknesses in your family tree and fix them.

Tools:

Step 4 – Analyse

Analysis and more analysis!

Critical analysis is important throughout the research process. However, thinking of it as a separate step reminds you to do it more consciously and thoroughly.

Try breaking your research problem into smaller chunks. Tackle smaller pieces of the problem instead of the whole, and you may get closer to an answer.

Examine possible causes of your research problem. This may help you identify tactics to employ.

Analyse all of the information, sources and evidence more thoroughly and more objectively. Examine what other researchers have concluded about your research problem.

Tools:

  • Mind mapping is a great tool for breaking down problems, identifying gaps and highlighting inconsistencies.
  • A timeline is an essential analytical tool for all genealogy research problems.

Step 5 – Identify

Identify research leads.

Sources that you may not have examined before. Repositories you have not tried. Inconsistencies that should be resolved.

Identify extended family, friends, associates and neighbours (FFANs). Sources about these people may supply information relevant to your research questions.

Consider alternative explanations. Generate a wider range of hypotheses to explore.

Tools:

  • see tools listed in step 4
  • Revise your research plan if you already have one, or write one if you do not.

Step 6 – Investigate

Implement your research plan, investigate all research leads.

Update your documentation as you work, including relevant evidence summaries and your research plan. The process of documentation will help your analysis.

Problem solving method

There are three important things to keep in mind when solving family history research problems.

Do it again!

The research process and the problem solving process are both cyclic. You need to keep repeating the steps until you are finished.

Each time you revisit a problem or a source, you may notice something new.

Do things differently!

No problem is solved by continually doing things the same way. You must force yourself do something differently each time.

Do things more thoroughly!

Tough problems take time to solve. Pay attention to the details. Develop your analytical skills.

Diagram illustrating examples of ways that a genealogy researcher can approach things differently.
Solve a genealogy research problem by doing things differently (Generations Genealogy)

Feature image generated by AI within WordPress

Advice

Observations on downloading an Ancestry family tree

generationsgenealogyaus

Like most things in life, downloading your Ancestry family tree is not as simple as might be expected. For it to work well, you need to prepare your tree first and tidy up afterwards.

How to download your Ancestry family tree

Open the family tree that you want to download, then open the Tree Settings. Under the heading Manage Your Tree there is a button labelled Export Tree. Click on the button, wait until it creates the file and you can then download it and save it to your computer.

A few important points:

  • You can only download your own Ancestry family tree and you can only download the entire tree.
  • The file type is a GEDCOM file. Although it is a text file and can be opened in Word or similar programs, it is really only useful if you import it into family history software. I cannot speak for all the software, but for Legacy Family Tree, I have to import the file, not open it.
  • The file you download is a copy. It does not delete or remove your tree from Ancestry.
  • The GEDCOM file does not include all the images that are attached to your tree, but it does include the source citations.

Alternatives to downloading your Ancestry tree

  • If you have Family Tree Maker (FTM) software, you can sync your Ancestry tree with your tree in FTM.
  • You can print profiles of individuals or parts of your family tree from Ancestry to a PDF.
  • You can print the entire family tree using MyCanvas to create a family history book or chart.

Issues that I observed when downloading a tree

These observations are only relevant for Legacy Family Tree software, but similar results may also occur with other software.

While I have not conducted a thorough review of the Ancestry tree that I imported into my family history software, the process does appear to correctly include all the people in a tree, including those with multiple marriages.

The imported file does not automatically select the starting person in the family tree, so you need to reset that after importing it into your software.

In Legacy Family Tree there is a field below births on each person’s profile where you can enter christenings or baptisms. The imported file moved baptism information to the Events/Facts section. I assume this occurred because I have the label in Legacy set to christenings, even though I also place baptisms there. If that is an issue for you, you might need to check that you have this field labelled as baptisms before you import the tree.

The imported file placed AKA names as Notes instead of recording them as Alternative Names.

extract from Notes section of Legacy family tree after downloading an Ancestry family tree
AKA from Ancestry family tree added as a General Note in Legacy, as well as the other unwanted text that appears in each profile.

Where I had put notes in the Description field of a birth death or marriage fact on my Ancestry family tree, the imported file appropriately added these as notes to the relevant BDM entry in Legacy.

Event notes in Legacy family tree after downloading an Ancestry family tree
Notes that I had attached to a birth fact in my Ancestry family tree were appropriately placed as notes to the birth fact in Legacy family tree.

The imported file left extraneous text in the General notes of each person (see the AKA image above).

Place names in the imported file are only as good as the information in the Ancestry tree. Ancestry sometimes adds incorrect place names when sources are attached – for example, for Australian electoral rolls it adds the electoral district instead of the suburb. Place names in an Ancestry family tree should be tidied up before downloading a copy of the tree.

Source citations are also only as good as the citation in Ancestry. Unfortunately, the quality of citations is variable. This is probably the bit that needs the most work before you download your tree, as downloading information without adequate source citations is not very useful.

My tips for fixing source citations

Make sure that all of your sources are attached to the relevant facts in your Ancestry family tree, as sometimes the link does not happen. If you click on a source or a fact, there should be a line linking the two.

The imported citation will only include the text that Ancestry records on the Citation Details tab. It will not include the text from the Ancestry Record tab. The details on the Ancestry Record tab may be essential for tracking down the source, so the omission is quite significant. To overcome this problem, you should edit the source citation to add these details before downloading the tree.

Example citation details tab for an Australian birth record in Ancestry.com
Example citation details tab for an Australian birth record. Note that it does not contain the date or reference number, so the citation will be incomplete.
Example citation details tab for an Australian birth record with date and reference number, on Ancestry.com
Same source, with the date and reference number appearing on the Ancestry Record tab.
Extract of a form from Ancestry.com that allows you to edit a source citation
Click on Edit Citation (not Edit Source!) and add the details from the Ancestry Record tab.
Example citation details tab for an Australian birth record
Same source, after editing it to add the details.

This problem with missing details is not always an issue. For example, citations for census records do tend to include the details on the Citation Details tab (see below).

Example citation details tab for an English census on Ancestry.com
Citation details tab for an English Census citation.

Some citations in my imported files had extraneous information and gobblygook (see below). This appears to occur when the citation has text under the heading Notes in the Ancestry citation tab. I was unable to find a way to remove that text in Ancestry before downloading the tree, so it will have to be deleted from the imported file in my family history software. It appears to be a rare occurrence, but something to look out for.

Example of where Ancestry.com added text on the Citation details tab under the heading Note
Example of where Ancestry added text on the Citation details tab under the heading Note. This ended up in my citation after importing the tree into my family history software (see below).
Extract from Legacy Family Tree illustrating a sample source citation
The resulting citation in my software.

Final tips

Downloading a copy of your Ancestry family tree and saving it on your own computer is highly recommended. However, be aware of these types of issues and resolve them first, so that the resulting file is useful for your research.

Download copies of source images to your computer before downloading your tree. It is a good idea to do this each time you attach an image to your tree, so that it is not such a huge task later.

More information

For more of my articles on source citations and documenting your family history, go to the Document page.

You can also find tips for source citations in the Ancestry Support section of their website, such as this article on Managing Sources.

Post last updated 12 June 2024

Advice, Methodology

Organise your family history. Avoid feeling overwhelmed

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Researching your family history is a large undertaking. It is not uncommon for researchers to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of it from time to time. Here are four strategies to help you organise your family history to get back in control.

Take a break

One of the best strategies to organise your family history is to put your research aside for a while and give yourself time to recharge. You could take half an hour and go for a walk, take a day, or weeks or months. Whatever time you need. Do not let yourself feel guilty for doing so.

Woman walking a dog

If the reason you are feeling overwhelmed is that you just returned from a break and are having trouble determining where to start, then try one of these other strategies.

Break it down

Any large object or project is easier to manage if you break it down into smaller pieces. Never try to tackle a difficult research problem when you are feeling overwhelmed. Go for small wins to build your confidence again.

hand placing a puzzle piece into a gap in a puzzle

Tasks

  • Focus on just one person for a while, or one family group, or one time period.
  • Write down three tasks (yes, tasks, not research questions) and complete them. When they are done, write down three more.
  • Spend time on something in your family history that you really enjoy – even if it is just reading old newspapers.

Organise your family history

The feeling of being overwhelmed will lessen if you organise your family history and have a plan for what you want to do next. However, getting organised can seem like a huge task in itself, so you should break it down into manageable chunks and plan to address it over a period of months.

person writing in a notebook

Tasks

  • Print out a copy of your family tree and review where you are up to. Are there any obvious gaps that you need to focus on?
  • Conduct a Tree Health Assessment (THA) of your family tree to determine which parts you have substantiated and which parts need more evidence. You can download instructions for a THA on my Free Stuff page.
  • Review your research goals and identify your objectives. Which aspects your research are the most important to you?
  • Prepare research plans for the families that you want to research next. The blog series that I wrote on research planning will give you some ideas for this process. Search ‘research planning’ in the search bar to the right of this post.
  • Organise your papers, your files and the research that you have already done. Aim to do a bit of maintenance each time you sit down, or set a regular day – weekly, fortnightly, monthly.

Get help

Learning how to do something better is a great way to feel more in control. There are a lot of great lectures, workshops and books out there that provide guidance on the research process. Look for ones that are relevant to your research and your skill levels, or ones that seem like fun.

You can also get help by visiting a family history library or archive, joining a family history Facebook group, or by employing a professional genealogist.

More information

For more of my articles about research methods for family history, go to the Research Methods page.

For more of my articles about organising your family history, go to the Organise page.

For family history lectures and courses, see the Society of Australian Genealogists’ Events page.

Post last updated 4 June 2024