It won’t do you any good to research your family history if you can’t remember what you found. Taking notes in genealogy is a must, not only for recording important information, but also for transcribing it onto a more permanent record repository, such as genealogy software. However, you can’t just copy down any information you find in any old way. No matter how good you are at interpreting your own handwriting, shorthand, and scribblings in the margins, you need to take a more measured approach to notes in genealogy. You don’t want to get home with those notes and find you don’t understand what you wrote, and/or can’t figure out what piece of information goes with other tidbits you wrote down on the page.
Here is why you need to take careful notes in genealogy research, and how to take them...