Flexibility



Be flexible in your research.  Birth, marriage and death dates and places may vary from record to record.  Don’t be concrete with your data and with your thinking.  Information on documents is only as accurate as the person giving the information.  If the informant was erroneous in giving information then the information on the document will be incorrect.

Name spellings can and will vary from record to record.  Depending upon whether your ancestors could read and write, if they had an accent, if the scribe was good at spelling and how the record is indexed today, there may be inconsistencies in spelling in both common easy names and in unusual difficult names.    Look at variations in spelling and trying using creative spelling to locate your ancestors.

People may possibly go by their given name, initials, middle name, surname or even their nickname.
The name they go by can change throughout the years.  As a child a person may be called one name by his or her parents, but as he gets older he may prefer using another part of his name.  Be consistent in searching for an ancestors given and middle names, and for searching just using their initials. 

Families moved from area to area and locations change jurisdiction and names.  So be sure to do general area searchers and look for family members in different towns and counties than where you believed them to live.  It pays to search for family members in nearby towns and counties.

If a person is buried in a place it doesn’t mean they died there.  In addition, not all children were born where the family lived.  Be creative in your thinking and in your search parameters.

While using computer searches, review any close matches—and be flexible in your research, but don’t stretch just any old record to fit your family!

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