Filed under Starting From Almost Nothing: A Method Guide
First checks before you go further
Start with a name by adding every other fact you have, however small: dates, places, family details and any service hint. A name alone matches too many people, so the added facts are what make the search possible.
The record you need is usually the one for the dates you have, not the one with the most dramatic story attached to it. A record set arranged by unit will not yield to a surname search, and a record set arranged by date will not yield to a unit search. Learn the arrangement first. The strongest clue is often the least glamorous: a number, a date, a place. Glamorous clues, badges and stories, point in many directions at once.
The order to work in
Order matters more than speed here. The same records, opened in a different order, produce a different timeline, and only one of those orders can be checked. Keep your notes in the same order as the steps, so that a later reader, including yourself in six months, can retrace the work. Work forward through time, not backwards, unless a later record is the only one that names the earlier period. Forward is the direction records explain.
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Name the clue exactly: what it is, what it says, and what it does not say. |
| 2 | Choose the first record that clue points to, and note its reference before opening it. |
| 3 | Extract only dated facts from that record, and add them to a first timeline with source notes. |
| 4 | Let the first timeline choose the second record, and keep guesses in a separate list until a record joins them. |
Where this kind of research usually stalls
If the trail ends at a particular holder, the next step is to ask that holder where the record went, not to search the same catalogue harder. Do not mistake a digitised index for the whole record set. An index that covers part of a series will hide entries that the full catalogue would show.
A record that exists but is not digitised is not a dead end, it is a different route: a catalogue reference, a copy order, or a visit, where the holder offers one. 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.
Reading what the record actually says
Keep the original terms in your transcription and put your interpretation in a separate column. A transcription that already contains conclusions cannot be checked by anyone else. When a file is thin, read it twice: once for what it says, and once for what kind of file it is. A thin file read as a thick one will be over-interpreted. Watch for the clerk hand as well as the officer hand. Different hands in one file mean different dates of writing, and later hands can introduce later errors.
The next record in the chain
Where this record and another disagree, the next record should be one that can explain the disagreement, not one that repeats one side of it. Return to the pillar guide when you lose the thread. Pillars exist to restore the shape of a section when detail has obscured it.
A good next step narrows the search, rather than widening it. If the next record could be anything, the question is not yet sharp enough. A timeline that can be retraced, reference by reference, is the goal. Everything else, story included, is secondary to that.
Primary sources for this guide
Claims in this guide are kept general and point to official holders, so you can check the current position with the holder itself. This guide is general educational information only. It is not personal professional advice, it does not offer a record lookup service, and it does not determine any individual's service.