Searching For Dead People

Searching for Dead People
A Practical Guide to Evidence-Based Family History

Finding ancestors has never been easier. Proving them has never been more important.

In the digital age, genealogy is driven by hints, automated trees, and one-click connections. With a few taps, you can extend your family line back centuries. It feels effortless. It feels magical.

It is also dangerously easy to get wrong.

Searching for Dead People is a practical, clear-eyed guide to building a family history grounded in evidence rather than assumption. Written for beginners and developing researchers alike, this book teaches you how to think like a historian, evaluate records properly, and construct a family tree you can defend with confidence.

Inside, you will learn how to:

• Distinguish between a source and the information it contains
• Navigate civil registration, census records, and parish registers
• Evaluate conflicting evidence
• Use wills, Poor Law records, newspapers, and military files
• Break through brick walls without guessing
• Organise and preserve your research securely
• Build a legacy your descendants can trust

This is not a book about collecting names.
It is a book about building proof.

If you want to move beyond flashing hints and unsourced trees — and start constructing a documented, defensible family history — this is your compass.