Good queries bring excellent results - Genealogy: includes a listing of four resources useful for making family tree inquiries

Do you have a not to be found relative, the facts of whose life are a confound in your genealogical search? Is Uncle Jerry's shire of residence in Georgia a mystery to you? If these sum of two units questions resemble ones that you find yourself asking, then you may want to consider using queries to aid your research. In genealogy there is great value in being able to ask a pointed question that will bring forward the specific information you need

The question writer will find that precise information, well-arranged, will draw attention, and is more likely to achieve proper results. Poorly worded or confused queries are valueless. Below are a small in number examples that will suggest ways to improve your queries.

Some queries give information without clarification: We want examination of the ancestry of Abbianna Brown of Marion shire Ind., who was born in 1855 in Charleston, SC and died in Muncie, Ind., in 1902 She first married William Brown and then married Tyree Harris. Her obituary doesn't give any mention of whom her 11 children married. There is too little information here about Brown whose ancestry is sought and there is no indication that the quiet of the query has anything thing do with the search.

A interrogatory recently published in a genealogical publication simply stated: I ne my grandfather, who was a resident of southerly Carolina in his youth, and went West as a young man. Besides the fact that it was not the grandfather who was extremityed but information about the grandfather, this interrogatory says too little. Had the writer known something about his grandfather's occupation, for instance, he might have said: My grandfather, whom I know alone as Grandpa Masters, was a stevedore, possibly living near a port city or a large river in southern Carolina just after the extremity of slavery. The query now has an approximate date and a name, as well as an occupation and a general location.

It ofttimes pays to consult a map or gazetteer when you are unsure of a place name. The use of city, shire and state names clarifies location and adds to the preciseness of the inquiry rather than leaving a vague understanding. in short, do the homework that will fine-tune your interrogatory One example might be to mention the city Hutchinson, in Reno shire Kan., rather than to say it was somewhere near Wichita, Kan. The concern librarian of the nearest library is always willing to assist the serious researcher.

Another inquiry might read as follows: Seeking information upon John Gladson Sr. and jr Seeking information upon the three daughters of Aaron Harrington whose names were Sarah, Rachael and Rhoda. This inquiry gives no dates or geographical locations. Further, it exhibits no relationship between the Gladson men and the Harrington family. A reply would be most unlikely. This question should be separated into sum of two units and there should be dates and geographical locations listed. Don't wait for the people who read similar incomplete queries to be mind readers.

Perhaps there are times when with equal reason little information is known about a particular individual that there is no faith of knowing what questions to ask. detain looking, reading and discussing the moot point with knowledgeable genealogists, and detain reading other people's queries. A suggestion may tend hitherward to hand sooner than you think.

Ernestine G Lucas, the queries editor for the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society's national office, is the author of From Paris to Springfield: The Slave Connection Basye-Basey (1984) and Wider Window to die Past: African-American History From a Family Perspective (1995)

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