Research Tips for Romania

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The Research Journal
One way to focus on one person at a time is to create and maintain a Research Journal. To create a journal, take an ordinary notebook. The notebook can be spiral, bound, or most any size that is comfortable for you. On each page, your write the name of one person, starting with your father. The next page is for your mother, and then your brothers and sisters. After that, put in pages for your grandparents and your aunts and uncles. Then, work you way back generation by generation.

Each page in the journal should look like this:

Name

Code (from FamilySearch) Birth date Birth place Marriage Date Marriage Place Death Date Death Place Spouse(s) Children

Fill in all the information you know about the person. Where you need to do research is where the information is blank.

Underneaath the information you create a table:

The date is when you made the contact or received the information The source is where you got the information. The source description is any indentification that will help some else access the source, such aa library call number or file number. The information received is what you found out.

Here is an example page:

Florin Marcu LBDT-9LS

born: abt 1894 place: Romania married: abt 1916 place: Romania death: 1962 place: Romania

Wife: Maria Children: Stefan (m), Maria (f), Ion (m), Dumitru (m), Ecaterina (f) + 3 other children

Date Source Source Description Information received 1 Oct 2013 Mom telephone call Didn't know her grandfather 28 Oct 2013 CNSAS File # R218544 Death date, names of wife &amp; children

What do you then need for Florin Marcu? A birth certificate, marriage certificate, and death certificate.

You keep track of the research you need to do on a Research Report that looks like this:

Name Record Source Florin Marcu Birth Certificate National Archive, Craiova Florin Marcu Marriage Certificate Amaratii de Jos city offices Florin Marcu Death Certificate Craiova city offices Maria Marcu Headstone Craiova cemetary

The Research Report and Work Order
The Reseach Report becomes a to-do list. Don't worry about how long it is, just start at the top and work you way down, one task at a time. This way, family history work becomes less overwhelming. Writing one email or a letter is not so hard to do. But, be sure as you do the tasks, put them in the table on the person's page. If nothing else, it will keep you from doing the same thing twice.

If you notice that one source have information on several people, you can prepare a Work Order. For example, if several of your ancestors are buried in the same cemetary, just take one trip and get all the information from their headstones:

Craiova Cemetary Florin Marcu 1962 Maria Marcu 1960 Adrian Ghinescu 1921 Alin Bobescu 1919 etc