Biggest research mistakes (not to make!)

One of the joys of family history is finding incontrovertible proof that the names on your family tree do indeed belong to your relatives. Developments in DNA technology and pricing are beginning to help with this. Nevertheless, while collecting names on the tree is fun, true genealogical satisfaction lies in confirming those ancestors are truly yours.

With the growth of online family history websites has come an assumption that genealogical research is easy: that we can all sit down at a computer in the morning and know everything about our ancestry by evening. Sadly, although online and other developments are helping us to find more ancestors, nothing can replace the skills needed in researching family history accurately.

Despite huge technological advances, it remains all too easy for us to make mistakes in our research every week, or even every day. Here I look at what mistakes to avoid, and reveal how best to approach your research, in order to fulfil that requirement of finding ancestors
you can prove, unquestionably, to be yours.