A huge thanks to Harriet Hurley at The Crowood Press for sending me a review copy of Karen Cummings' new book, Genealogy Methods and Techniques: A Practical Guide to Research. The following is the description for the book from the website:
This book takes the reader on a journey through a series of research strategies, providing guidance at every step of the way. With clear explanations, real-life case studies and over 100 tables, charts and illustrations, it will equip you to apply best practices to your own research right from the start.
The following is my impartial review.
Genealogy Methods and Techniques: A Practical Guide to Research, by Dr. Karen Cummings (The Crowood Press, 2026; £16.99) https://www.crowood.com/book/genealogy-methods-and-techniques/
Many would-be genealogists believe that family history research involves simply diving into online databases and copying other people's family trees from online resources, letting what can be found with ease guide the research process, rather than the skills and consideration of the genealogist that are actually required for successful research.
Thankfully, Karen Cumming's new book takes a welcome and thoughtful look at the necessary methodology for an effective ancestral pursuit. As she notes in her introduction, "It is quite easy to create a family tree these days. With such a wealth of material available at your fingertips online you can work back through the generations quite quickly, creating a family tree in no time at all. It is easy to create a family tree, but how do you know it is your family tree?"
Structured across eleven chapters, Karen tackles the subject matter with a welcome non-academic tone, exploring what it means to carry out research, and how to be effective in doing so, with her book packed with tips and case studies to guide the reader along the way.
The introductory chapter defining the nature of family history research is followed by a step-by-step approach to the basics in the subsequent four chapters, inviting you to lay and check the foundations of your research, how to get organised with your research, how to evaluate evidence (what does a document tell you, but also, what does it not tell you?), and how to identify and record the sources consulted (in both academic and more simplistic formats). In Chapter 6 she then looks at how archives categorise their holdings, and how to effectively look for their records on catalogues and datasites (and how to look for gaps in their holdings), and then from Chapter 7 considers how to effectively plan for research by creating source surveys.
Chapter 8 is one of the bigger chapters, discussing how to put research together, with many effective case studies to illustrate some of the challenges involved, followed then by a detailed consideration of standards in Chapter 9. This chapter includes considered coverage of two standards codes used to help genealogists work out if they are on the right track with their efforts, one from the Society of Genealogists in London called the 'Standards and Good Practice Guide', and then the American based Genealogical Proof Standard, followed by other useful techniques to help with problem solving, such as family reconstitution and the mapping of ancestors' locations.
Chapter 10 is then a bit of an oddity, a short and well-written look at the use of DNA in family history research, with some methodological considerations for that as a particular field of research, but which does feel a little bit out of place compared to the preceding chapters. This may simply be a reflection of just how different a research tool it is to the traditional archive based resources used by genealogists covered earlier in the book, and which Karen quite rightly notes must still be considered when carrying out genetic genealogy research. Chapter 11 concludes with a simple afterword to the whole tome.
Mercifully written in plain English rather than in a more formal academic tone adopted by other works in the field, this is a very effective guide that will help the humble genealogist stay on track with their research. Each chapter is clear, concise, and well illustrated, concluding with a summary of key points and action points to consider in going forward.
Whilst the book almost exclusively relies on English based records alone for its case studies, the point of the work is to show how to find records - any records - and how to consider them and employ them for your research, and thus the techniques discussed can be just as effectively applied to research sources in Scotland, Ireland, or anywhere else in the world. Genealogy Methods and Techniques is a cracking work which I have no hesitation in recommending to all those wishing to become genealogical researchers rather than genealogical sheep!
(With thanks to Harriet)
Chris
Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. To purchase in the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.
