Tips for Beginners

• COLLECT ALL you can from the sources you have immediately on hand. Speak to your relatives, but take what they say with a grain of salt. Treat the information you get by word of mouth as clues, not fact! Not everyone's Blair ancestor fought at the Alamo!

• The Blair's were not very creative when it came to handing out names. There were dozens of Blair's named Sam, John, James, etc., so don't automatically assume the Sam you find in a record, is your Sam.

• DON'T BELIEVE everything you read in print or find on the internet! A vast amount of early (and new) research has proven to be inaccurate. This same rule applies to information you read in obituaries and biographical sketches in county histories. These are excellent sources of information and clues, but be aware they are often fraught with errors and typos. Always try to verify the information you find in primary sources-the more sources the better!

• DON'T ASSUME! For instance: You find two Blair families in the same county, and you automatically want to assume they are related in some fashion. They may well be, but prove it, don't assume it. This occurs quite frequently because of similar migration patterns.

• MOST IMPORTANTLY! FIND AN EXPERT ON BLAIR RESEARCH! The best way to do this is to join the BLAIR SOCIETY FOR GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH. The BSGR has members from beginners to experts and welcomes them all! The BSGR database has 10's of thousands of Blair's and their descendants already documented. If your line is not already included, it may only require a little research to get it back to far enough to connect with one of the BSGR's documented lines. Why spend hundreds of dollars repeating research that has already been done?