Nordic Trail - Explorer Instructions Step 1

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]

The purpose of this page is to explain what work is expected to be done by the Explorer. Specific tools and resources for each country will be presented on a separate page.

Contents 1 What will be covered in Step 1 2 Initial contact 3 Your work on Profiles 4 Why Sourcing Is Important 4.1 What about Online Family Trees? 5 Current Available Trails

What will be covered in Step 1

• Data Fields: How to correctly fill in the profile's data fields.
• Nordic Names and Spelling: Nordic Name customs, person names and place names, using Nordic "special letters"
• Formatting: The use of headings and lists to make the profile easier to read. Adding templates and stickers.
• Adding categories to profiles and finding categories to use.
• Biography writing: Adding structure to biography section, adding links to other profiles
• Finding Sources: What sources are available for each country and where to find them.
• Adding Sources: How to add a source so others can locate it and using inline citations
• Critical analysis: Have I found a fact about the correct person?

You may already know some of these points which will most likely help you complete the Nordic Trail faster than the estimated time.

Initial contact

Once you have applied to become an Explorer, your first contact will be the Trail Guide Coordinator. The coordinator will find an available Trail Guide to help you along the way, and your next contact will be the Trail Guide who sends you an email with information on what profile to work on. Please be aware that there may be times when we have more Explorers than available guides and you could possibly be put on a waiting list.

Your work on Profiles

The initial mail from your Trail Guide will include what profile you will be working on. What we now want you to do on the profile is;

• Using headings and lists to make the profile easier to read. Using a "Research Notes" section if there is anything you have not been able to find or where aspects of the biography need further research. Optional: using templates and/or stickers
• Locate original sources for birth, marriage, and death and add them to the profile.
• Adding any original sources for censuses or household examination/visitation records you can find, showing that the profile belongs to the family you found the other sources for. At a minimum, your finished profile must have enough information to ensure it does not get incorrectly merged with another profile with a similar name. We encourage you to include as much of the person's life in their biography as you can find in primary, original sources. (Household examination/visitation is the custom where the clergy visited homes in his parish. The clergy noted each person living in a household at a specific place, and usually included the years/dates each person was born.).
• Adding secondary sources, evaluating reliability and when they can be useful
• Adding sources in a way that others might find them, including links. Making inline citations that connect to a specific event/part of biography.
• Using the correct names according to customs of a specific county. Also correct spelling for person and place names, using Nordic "special letters"
• Checking that all the data fields for name, location, and date have the correct format and spelling
• Adding categories to the profile

Your guide will be available to answer any questions you have and help you along the way but you are the one to do the "actual research".

When you have finished working on your profile, send an email to your Trail Guide so they can now review your work. The guide may suggest some edits to be made before sending you the next profile to work on. You will need to finish 3 profiles in this way before graduating Step 1 of the Nordic Trail for a specific country.

The Nordic Trail will focus on using original sources, not just using reliable sources for pre-1700 profiles but for all Nordic profiles. Please read this section below about sources that is relevant for all countries before moving on to the country specific page links.

Why Sourcing Is Important

Sourcing is used to support (or challenge) a family tree, to establish family connections, to help "prove" (or disprove) family lineages, and to record where the information came from. Here is a good article that sums things up: Genealogy Without Sources is Mythology!

Sources are either original or derivative.

A primary source is one that was recorded either at the time of the event or shortly afterwards. Although these sources are generally reliable, they can have errors and you will learn how to evaluate the information contained in them, especially when one source contradicts another.

Here are examples of original sources where the information gathered from them is generally considered reliable:

• Birth, Marriage and Death records.
• Family bibles with birth/marriage/death dates.
• Books that cite primary sources. This would Include books that transcribe birth/marriage/death records as well as authored family histories or trees that cite birth/marriage/death records.
• Military records.
• Will and estate records.
• Court records.
• Burial records.
• History books that would have collected information from the subjects themselves.
• Newspaper articles with the publication name, date, and location.
• A proof summary of multiple sources of supporting evidence used to draw a reasonable conclusion.

A secondary source is one that is written after the event or period has passed. Secondary sources can still be reliable if they cite primary sources. They can be useful for clues about where to look for primary sources, or for background information to expand the profile's biography (for example, a history book which covers an occupation and what it was like during the time period we are researching).

Information from derivative sources, unless supported by other sources, should be considered uncertain and marked as such. However, since the community does not enforce a set standard of proof, this is a determination made by the editors of the profile — the Wiki Genealogists who are engaged in finding and evaluating sources of information. See "Disagreements about Certainty" before considering marking information added by someone else as "Uncertain."

Here are examples of derivative sources:

• A link to a personal family tree.
• A family tree found online, including GEDCOMs, LDS ancestral files, World Family Tree, RootsWeb, Geni, Ancestry Member Trees, etc. If the tree cites reliable proofs, find the proofs and cite them.
• Yates Publishing, US and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900, from Ancestry.com.
• Find-A-Grave. Find-A-Grave profiles rarely cite reliable proofs. When they do, find the proofs and cite them.
• Transcriptions of documents (wills, etc.) found online that are not published.
• A discussion in a genealogy forum. If the discussion cites reliable proofs, find the proofs and cite them.
• Books with family trees/family histories that do not cite reliable sources. These books are secondary sources and should be seen as a starting point. Further research is needed to confirm those relationships.
• Edmund West Collection, from Ancestry.com, per their own description, "should be used to find primary sources."

Reliable and unreliable sources vary greatly in reliability. It can be helpful to know why the source was created and by whom when evaluating how reliable a source is. Generally, governmental and church records are reliable.

Always remember that transcriptions may be inaccurate. Every time someone transcribes information from one place to another, there is a risk of human error, especially when the handwriting is difficult to read.

What about Online Family Trees?

A family tree by itself is not a reliable source. A good family tree cites primary sources so you can double check the accuracy of the facts as presented. Cite the primary source used by that family tree rather than the name of the tree itself. An unsourced family tree contains no evidence to confirm what is being presented.

Please do NOT use any of these online family trees types as "sources."

• Ancestry
• Rootsweb
• Geni
• Familysearch: Pedigree Resource Files or User-Submitted Genealogies
• MyHeritage
• Geneanet
• WeRelate

Current Available Trails

• Nordic Trail - Sweden, Step 1