Filed under What Is Really Free Online? A Method Guide
Where should you start looking?
A record that is not digitised can still be consulted on site at the holding archive, or ordered as a copy where the holder offers that service. Digitisation is a convenience, not the record itself, and absence online is not absence from the archive.
The strongest first check is a boring one: does every filter agree, or does only one agree and the rest stay silent? Where a clue comes from a relative, note who supplied it and when. A clue supplied decades later carries different weight from one written at the time.
Working through it in order
Do not let a tool, a website, or an index set the order of your work. Tools serve steps; steps do not serve tools. Work from the most reliable record you have towards the least, not from the most interesting towards the most convenient. Do not skip the step that checks the filters. It feels redundant when the filters seem obvious, and it is the step that catches wrong persons.
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Start from the official holder catalogue or site for the record you need. |
| 2 | Note whether what is free is an index, a transcription, or a digitised copy. |
| 3 | Check a transcription against the digitised copy or the catalogue entry before relying on it. |
| 4 | Plan paid steps, such as copy orders, only after the free finding aids have fixed the reference. |
How do you read what you find?
Corrections, crossings out and later additions are part of the evidence, not damage to it. A record corrected at the time tells you something changed. Period handwriting, period place names and period unit structures all reward a slow reading. Speed is what turns a plausible reading into a wrong one. The order of sheets in a file is not always the order of events. Rebuild the date order yourself, and do not trust filing order to do it for you.
Dead ends to expect here
A dead end shared by many researchers is usually a coverage problem, not a personal one. The research guides for that record type will often say so plainly. If two records give the same person different numbers, do not pick one and discard the other. Numbers change on transfer, on re-enlistment, and on reorganisation. A photograph with no caption, a medal with no roll entry, and a story with no dates are all the same problem: a clue without a filter.
Where to go next from here
A timeline should end each session with a named next step, not with a vague intention to look further. Name the record, the reference, and the question. Do not start a new cluster until this one has yielded its dated facts. Half-finished clusters produce timelines that mix two record types badly. Research done slowly, with references, outlasts research done quickly, with enthusiasm. Choose the slower kind.
Primary sources for this guide
This guide keeps its claims general and points to the official holders, so the holder itself is the place to check the current position. It is general educational information only, not personal professional advice, and it offers no record lookup service and no determination of any individual's service.