RESEARCH GUIDANCE

By clicking on the Search tab at the top of Family Search as you enter the program and then selecting Research Guidance, you can obtain the necessary help to work in an unfamiliar location. Research Guidance was put together using various features of the Source Guide which preceded it.

As indicated in Chapter 10 of your textbook, the SourceGuide contained four major items necessary for a family historian:

• instructions on what sources are the most important to search in each state or country
• how and in what order to approach the sources in each area
• word lists to help you interpret records in of various nations
• maps of diverse time periods

For example, you might be interested in doing research in Alabama.

Once you are in the Research Guidance home page, merely click on the letter A, scroll down to the state of Alabama, and double click on "Alabama." You can cut and paste the information you are interested in, or print the entire outline and study it at your leisure. Either way, you will learn much about the resources for the state of Alabama.

Once your study of the research outline has lead you to a record source, go to the Family History Library Catalog and locate that source. You may also want to print a modern map in order to compare where the sites are today. The Research Guidance area will give you foreign references to a gazetteer which could point out specific places as well.

I challenge you to find one new source by using the Research Guidance feature for a state you were interested in studying.