How do genealogists present findings?

patsman07 wrote: »

How do genealogists present findings?

With a large bill I’d expect!

I’m not a pro either but have done a lot of research on my surname family and a few other unrelated families. For my own, I too am using the narrative format, structuring the content myself, largely helped by using inputs from my genealogical software (Ancestry/FTM). However, I’ve started at the earliest and work forward, the opposite of Pinky’s method. It’s still very much a work in progress as I have discovered some really interesting people on my maternal side and have lots more to merge/cut/paste on other individuals.

I believe a timeline is very important for each couple of generations to put people/places/events into the correct perspective and understand what was happening in their era (e.g. pre1650, Cromwell, early 1700’s Penal Laws, 1798, Emancipation, Famine, Fenians, Gaelic Revival, Land Acts, War of Indep., roles in building the new State, etc.) A sort of family history overlaid on a social one.

I’ve started with the origins of my surname, its earliest mentions and am working forward. I have included distant relatives where their stories are interesting e.g. during the 1840’s Famine one branch was very wealthy, another was nearly wiped out (PLG father who brought home “famine fever”) and another disappeared from Ireland due to death/emigration. Some were politically active and get a bigger mention due to availability of source material, as are stories about particular properties and how they came into or left the family. Events/people/places like that sometimes merit a “chapter” of their own and others in the individual’s family are mentioned briefly (they are covered in the Descendant Report – see below)

For the actual tree, I’ve proof to the late 1700’s so in the eight generations from then a descendant chart containing name and BMD dates is a scroll 22 pages wide using 10pt print so there is no way I could fit any readable tree on a single sheet. I (my FTM programme!) break it down into chunks on A3 in PDF format, where the pages are linked by letters/page numbers (e.g. after individual on edge of page is “A” and “Go to A on page x”). I also have a linked “Descendant Report” that gives dates, data and family notes on all. This contains the GRO or Church BM references for each individual. I don’t bother including scans of that data.

At the back I’ve chapters on each of the overseas branches I’m aware of, linking them where possible to the original emigrant or simply stating “X is supposed to descend from Y, eldest son of the family who lived in Z townland and left following foreclosure on their property”.

I have not yet decided what to do with photographs – insert them in appropriate places or put them all together in an album annex.

I hate footnotes, I find them very distracting so I use end-notes, not per chapter but continuous.

I am my own genealogist. I did my research backwards, but I am writing the story forwards. My family are not interested either but I want to do it anyway. I may have to bequeath my research to the NLI if they would take it. Does the NLI have facilities to store ordinary people's family trees, either in paper or digital form? That would be nice, as anyone in the future if they were learning to be a genealogist would just have to go to the NLI and see what they have. I am not terribly interested in publishing on the internet for all to steal willy-nilly. My Ancestry tree is still private. I have seen my own family on other people's trees only to find the most stupid mistakes where they have resorted to assumption instead of looking for evidence. I think someone here ages ago recommended leaving trees to local history or genealogical societies which I wouldn't be interested in doing, as nobody in a hundred years would know which society had the tree or if the societies still existed. Future generations wouldn't know. The very saddest thing for me is that as yet we do not have grandchildren.