Getting It Right: The Definitive Guide to Recording Family History Accurately

This book is an excellent guide for being consistent in citing your sources for genealogical research. The author has made available her knowledge after much research and running into many problems with source variations. I had not created my own guide and couldn't remember what I had done after a gap of 15 years in my research and new online resources becoming available. This was a great help.

Cindy from Provo, UT USA If you've read any of the popular genealogy books and are even slightly more than casual about your family history, this book is for you. Slawson has done what no other writer seems to have done to date: tackle the thorny issue of data entry standards once and for all. How do you record information consistently so that you can find it later, avoid errors and duplicate entries, and share your work? What's the right way to record your ancestor's nicknames? How do you enter information for someone who has died at sea? What about slave names? Or all that "other" information you've just been ignoring or dumping into the "notes" field? There are literally hundreds of precise guidelines and clear examples in this book for recording data in every case imaginable, whether your ancestor was an ambassador or an orphan. ,This book is EXTREMELY complete. Even if your ancestor died in outer space on the way to another planet it's covered here (I'm not kidding...see page 146.) You'll find a thorough list of peerage and nobility titles--from Abeto (an Ethopian prince) to Zar--a list of the names and codes for all the Mormon temples (over 100)...and how to submit names for temple ordinances...plus a list of all the world's major religions from atheist to zoroastrianism. Do you have tribal or "patronymic" names in your family? No problem. Civil, military and religious titles? Included. What to do with missing or incomplete dates and other information, even unusual situations that only occur in certain countries or periods? It's covered. Slawson has done her homework: you probably won't have a question that she has not answered crisply on one of the thoroughly researched and well-indexed pages of this new book (the index alone is 27 pages). ,The print is easy to read, especially if you need glasses like me. And Slawson appears to have gotten this "style guide for family history" reviewed, if not sanctioned, by some pretty heavy hitters in the field including folks from the New England Historical society, software developers, the people who run the Mormon databases and other genealogy specialists. ,Read Getting it Right and then use it as a reference whenever you add information to your family history, even for those "special cases." Over time you will achieve a certain consistency that will be required when you need to find something quickly, add information without duplications, merge in other folks' databases without manually re-doing everything, and submit your names online or otherwise share your work with others. ,My only complaint is that the book doesn't tell you where to find all the information in the first place. If it did that I don't think I would have needed any other genealogy book!I think this is destined to become a standard reference as the years go by. If you have or plan to get any other genealogy book you won't be disappointed with this one.

I donated this book to my local family history library! It should be in every library with a family history collection.

I have been doing Family History for 30 years, this is a book for beginners as well as the most experienced professional. We have never had a style guide for this work before, it has always been needed, its extensive and easy to understand. I can even read it with my glasses off. It tells you how to record what you find and gave me ideas I never thought of to continue my research. I would recommend it to everyone doing family history.