You can't just build your family history from bricks (the "best" sources). In genealogy, you're working with what you can scavage. If all you have is straw, that's all you have. You can't just keep waiting to find the perfect source or a direct answer. You have to use what you have. There's more to genealogy than just collecting sources or facts.

Maybe you're trying to build your family tree more like an underground, windowless bunker, which is overkill. Refusing to use sources you don't consider strong enough causes just as many problems as building with straw.

There are a lot of additional genealogical skills that allow you to analyze the information you have and write up a solution to your problem. This "analysis" is like creating mortar to make your sources stick together. Once again, just like building a physical structure, you have to use the right skills and combine them appropriately depending on what sources you have.

Can you imagine trying to build a house from layers of straw stuck together with mortar designed for bricks? The mortar might be strong but your structure would simply come apart at the straw layers. But you can use straw as a building material, you just can't slap it together with mortar meant for bricks.

Finding solutions in genealogy works the same way. You might not have any bricks to use. The farther back in time you research, the harder it is to find the "strongest" sources similar to what you found when you first started. The ideal sources might have been destroyed or they may never have been created. Professional genealogists are still able to find answers to tough problems and it's not because they know some magical source for the perfect source. It's because they know how to recognize bricks, sticks, or straw.

They don't just toss the straw when they find it. That might be all they have to work with. Once you can recognize the quality of sources you have available, you can decide how to work with them appropriately. But you don't need to hire a professional to identify your sources as straw, sticks, or bricks!

The first step is learning "source evaluation." This is how you'll know if a source is great (bricks), ok (sticks), or weak (straw). Remember, you don't want to toss the straw. It's critical to evaluate your sources in genealogy so you don't build on a shaky foundation (trying to stick straw together with brick mortar). Source evaluation is also critical so you have enough sources to work with, even if they aren't ideal sources.

Genealogists have to work with the sources available, regardless if they are bricks, sticks, or straw. Source evaluation is how you learn to work with whatever sources are available for your problem.

Psst, here's a little "bonus" reason to learn source evaluation. Not only will you learn to recognize how strong a source is, meaning how you should appropriately use it, source evaluation will also help you uncover clues you've been missing.

The Brick Wall Solution Source Evaluation Workbook is designed to help you get started learning AND doing source evaluation. It's not just an e-book, it's also a workbook. You'll learn the questions to ask yourself every time you find a source so you build YOUR family tree on a firm foundation.

No, thanks. I'm not sure source evaluation is for me.