Research Helps
to the Rescue!
Research Helps is a part of FamilySearch.org.
When you click on
Research Helps or go to the address given at the end of this article, you can
choose to sort the hundreds of available helps in any of four ways:
·
by
place,
·
by
title,
·
by
subject, or
·
by
Document type.
This section of
FamilySearch has all of the publications of the Family History Library,
including
1.
Research
Outlines
2.
Research
Guides
3.
Forms
4.
Word
Lists
5.
Much
more.
Research
Outlines
are in-depth discussions of the types of records in an area (state, province,
or country). It mentions each record type, tells when they began in that area,
what they contain, and how one can find them. It then describes some of the
collections of that type of record available at the Family History Library (or
one of nearly 3500 branches called Family History Centers, one of which is
probably near you). I routinely use the England Research Outline--its 65 pages
long (in print) and is available online at this site--fully searchable. Outlines
are available for all fifty states, and many countries.
Research Guides are usually four page (in
print) guides that explain how to use a specific record, such as the Periodical
Source Index or the 1881 British Census on CD-ROM. They help you know how to
use a source that may be unfamiliar to you or give you some of the finer points
about using a source that you may not have been using to its fullest potential.
Forms are blank reports you can
print to record your research. This includes such things as forms for recording
census information with all the column headers already filled out--all you have
to do is copy what's written in each column on the computer screen or microfilm
into the space provided.
Word lists are lists of words in one
language with its translation in another language. Thus there are Latin Word
lists (to or from English), Spanish, Norwegian, German, French, Spanish, and
many more.
There's a lot more
in the Research Helps section of FamilySearch. If you've read this far, please
complete your learning experience by checking out the actual site at