Pitfalls of Genealogical Research
- There are many businesses offering genealogy research. Some of these businesses offer high-quality services, while others offer no real service to speak of. Avoid online services that claim to be selling "family coat of arms with detailed history" for a fee. The products these companies offer are not a real form of genealogical research, they are assembly-line commercial products that provide the exact same information for each and every family with the same surname.
- Those who wish to do genealogical research independently should be careful to avoid the pitfall of low-quality records. Online records that have been reprinted from newspaper birth or death listings may have many factual errors. Researchers who want to obtain quality records should use census records and newspaper clippings from library databases. These records are official, and far more likely to be accurate.
- In some cases, genealogical records may simply have been misplaced. For example, there many be no surviving records of a county census or community newspaper for a given year. Almost all 20th century records are available, but records from earlier periods may not be. When an official record is not available, it can be a good idea to hire a professional genealogist to complete the job. It is possible to fill gaps in a family tree by talking to distant family members, but it is impossible to gauge the accuracy of information gained this way.
- Sometimes, genealogical records can be difficult to interpret. Problematic items in genealogical records include outdated census terminology in old census forms, records with several people of the same name born, and possible spelling mistakes in older records. Literacy was not as common in the past as it is today. As a result of this, many people filled out their names incorrectly on census forms. These and other linguistic pitfalls can make records difficult to interpret.