One of my favorite things about being a genealogist is knowing how to find information. I’ve found that because of the variety of research tasks our clients present to us, I have learned how to find a lot more than just genealogical information. I don’t watch much TV, but one show that I have caught a few times and have thoroughly enjoyed is History Detectives on PBS. I love to watch this show not just because it is interesting and covers a wide variety of historical mysteries, but because I love to examine the methodologies the history detectives use.

In 2009 I read a handful of non-fiction historical books, and I often found myself spending almost as much time reading the footnotes as the texts of the books. I enjoy examining the facts and thinking about what sources I would have used to document that piece of information and then comparing my method to the one the author or history detectives used. Often the methods are not remotely similar, but sometimes they are. This makes me wonder if “my” method was originally tried unsuccessfully or if “my” method didn’t even cross the researcher’s mind. As I’ve examined the record sources that other researchers use, a few things have come to mind:

• There really are a lot of ways to solve a problem, or “skin a cat,” as my colleague, Linda, would say.
• Historical research and genealogical research can be quite similar, but they can also be quite different. I’m of the opinion that many historical research problems can be solved rather efficiently using genealogical research methods. (But maybe I’m biased by my own research experience.)
• Sometimes what seems like a simple problem, is actually much more complicated than it looks.

As I contemplate my own capabilities as a psued0-history detective, or even a regular-old-detective, I’m eager to learn more about how other people solve research problems and what alternative methodologies I can learn.