We sit at our computer searching for information about our ancestors and ... click ... we find something new and intriguing. But wait: it contradicts something else we've found. Clearly, both pieces of information can't be true. So which is true and which isn't? Or are both untrue? HELP! Most family historians are more adept at gathering information than determining if it is accurate. An error can prove disastrous, gobbling up our precious time and money as we search in the wrong place - or worse, as we pursue the wrong ancestral line. So how do we ensure that our conclusions are accurate? "Help! Historical and Genealogical Truth: How do I separate fact from fiction?" is a 'must-read' for family history detectives wishing to accurately trace their ancestry. Written in Carol Baxter's easy-to-read style, it explains how to evaluate our ancestral information so as to determine which is reliable and which is like a virus that corrupts our efforts. After reading this book, you too will be able to separate fact from fiction, truth from mistruth. Your ancestors will thank you!Abridged review from 'The Ancestral Searcher' (HAGSOC) written by Eleanor Vardanega: The purpose of this book is to assist family historians to develop skills in accurately interpreting the information they have collected about their ancestors. Many people spend considerable time and money gathering information, so it makes sense you would want to be confident that this information actually relates to the correct (usually your) family and the conclusions that are drawn are accurate and defensible. This book provides a rigorous and systematic approach to getting at the truth.As set out in the book, this process of getting at the truth is divided into 'principles' - the foundations of evidence analysis, and 'practices' - typical strategies which may be used to put the principles into practice aided by the use of conflict resolution skills. These strategies are illustrated through a series of case studies involving family identity, family lore and how misinformation can take on a life of its own ... The 'principles' chapters cover the key concepts, the nature of their systematic application and the reliability of various types of evidence, including family stories. The diagrams illustrate and emphasise the key points of several important concepts ... In terms of the 'practices', each chapter illustrates typical complications of evidence and an appropriate strategy to deal with it. For example, the author refers to Ockham's Razor (p.73) in the context of developing theories to explain inconsistencies, glitches and oddities in family history records. Basically, this means that among competing theories, first go for simplicity. By way of simple explanations of record oddities, people make mistakes because they are tired or distracted, or have protected a reputation, or put too much faith in someone else's recollections. Chapter 15 struck me as a particularly interesting coverage of people's unmovable belief in a certain historical result or outcome which is virtually impossible to shift regardless of the weight of evidence to the contrary ...The two page Summary Check at the end of the book is useful for historians at all levels of skills and experience. I found it a useful device to run over a recent article that I thought was just about finished. It really helped the tidy-up pre publication ...Overall, this book is easy to read, with short chapters broken up with diagrams and case studies. The case studies are detailed enough to illustrate the lesson and very interesting in themselves ... There are plenty of books and websites out there to assist people with the accumulation phase, roadblocks and brick walls. This book fills an important need around the quality control of your information, write-up and conclusions, by providing theoretical principles, practical exercises and lessons in understanding historical context and human motivation.
About the Author: Carol Baxter, the History Detective, is a Fellow of the Society of Australian Genealogists and an adjunct lecturer at the University of New England (NSW). She started tracing her family history while she was still at high school and gained employment in the industry when she was aged 24. She worked as Project Officer for the Australian Biographical and Genealogical Record and later as General Editor of its 21st century incarnation, the Biographical Database of Australia. In those roles, she edited many publications dealing with Australian colonial records. Currently, she is a full-time writer and speaker and lives in Sydney, Australia. She also gives seminars at genealogical conferences on land and on international cruise ships. Carol is the internationally-acclaimed, award-winning author of five works of popular history (or 'historical true-crime thrillers' as the reviewers call them): "An Irresistible Temptation" (2006), "Breaking the Bank" (2008), "Captain Thunderbolt and his Lady" (2011), "The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable" (2013) and "Black Widow" (2015). Her fourth book was published to international acclaim. "The Times" (London) praised it as being 'as lively and readable as a crime novel' while London's "Independent" said that it was 'totally irresistible'. She recently received a commission from Allen & Unwin for another true-crime thriller, which will be published in 2017. After Carol's second 'popular history' was published, genealogists started asking her to help them write more interesting family histories. She decided to make this information more readily available by writing the genealogical 'how to' book, "Writing Interesting Family Histories" (2009 & 2010). A companion volume titled "Writing and Publishing Really Interesting Family Histories" will be released in 2015/2016. During Carol's years working in the genealogy industry and as a true-crime writer, she developed rigorous research strategies that would ensure that her research was exhaustive and that her conclusions were accurate. These proved their worth when she experienced strident criticism from bushranger aficionados and family historians who resented her evidence-based conclusions regarding bushranger, Captain Thunderbolt (they preferred to believe the myths). These strategies lie at the heart of "Help! Historical and Genealogical Truth: How do I separate fact from fiction?". Carol has more genealogical 'how to' books in the pipeline. See: www.carolbaxter.com.