Mastering Genealogical Documentation (NGS Special Topics Series Book 122)

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.