I wrote a couple weeks ago about analyzing the various genealogical sources that I’ve accumulated through many years of research. It’s been an arduous process and even though I haven’t finished, I can see the end in sight. An unforeseen advantage to source analysis is looking over the document again and trying to figure out where it came from, and the date that it was found. I’ve found during this process that even though I think I’ve logged in all of my data into my research log that’s not always the case.
When I’ve found items that haven’t been recorded in my log, I’ve added them in. Some of the documents I’ve looked at many, many times and I believe that I could recite them by heart. However upon rereading them again, I surprisingly find little tidbits of information that tell me something I didn’t know.
The journey through the mountain of papers has almost been like going on a research trip, but without the travel hiccups, terrible coffee, and courthouse dust or mold. Yes, it would’ve been wonderful to do more research, but I feel that analyzing my data has helped me to see that some sources aren’t as great as they could be. Then there are other documents that tell me things that I didn’t realize they were saying.
As I go through the various records, I’m slowly filing the items away with the appropriate ancestor. I have yet to do anything with the handouts that Elizabeth gave my class. I’ve overlaid tables on some of them, in preparation for when I use them for each of my ancestors.
I’ve noticed while reading through my sources that I haven’t really been able to reconstruct a group of people that my ancestors associated with. Before taking on this task, I had some names accumulated as people that were in various ancestors’ social circles, but haven’t come up with too many new names.
This whole process has caused me to think about information that I’ve found online about the Womble family and revisiting the idea of contacting those unknown distant relatives who might give me some more insight into the Womble family.
