Ask the Write Question

The research question. It seems like such a basic, “Of course, but let’s get to the good stuff!” kind of thing to think about. Let’s face it, it’s fun to fall down the rabbit hole and get lost in the Wonderland of records whether you are working on-line or at a repository. It’s easy to just have a vague idea that you want to know who your great-aunt married in Oklahoma, and come up for air four hours later adrift in Civil War pension files. But, if you plan to write up your research or are working for a client, crafting a focused research question first is going to make every step of the way easier and more efficient.

I tend to work my projects in one long document. I base my research plan, whether a few simple steps, or a complex battle plan, off my research question. This helps me keep track of time and decide where I need to go for research: On-line, to repositories or my own bookshelves.

Basically, if you don’t have a focused research question first a domino effect occurs:

• No good research question and you won’t be able to make a good research plan. 
• No good research plan and you’ll struggle to find the records you need to find. 

•  No good research question and you won’t be able to evaluate the sources or the information you do find very well.
• If you can’t evaluate your sources against a focused question, you can’t analyze your information.
• If you can’t compare and correlate your information, you can’t come to a conclusion. And, an answer or a conclusion is the point of doing genealogy research in the first place.
•  And, if you haven’t got a focused research question to answer, organizing your information is going to be haphazard and make little sense when you go to write it all down.

So . . . how do you craft a good research question that will take you from research plan to final report? The best short lesson on this topic is, of course, from Thomas W. Jones in his seminal, Mastering Genealogical Proof. One of the things he stresses is that a research question should not be too broad or too narrow.¹ I like to think of this as “The Baby Bear Zone” or a question that’s juuuuust right.

I keep in mind what my final product will be for this question. Are you writing a report about one event in someone’s life? An article for publication? Or will it be a small part of a larger genealogy?

My focused research question helps me organize my writing. One example of this is an on-going project about the parents of my second-great-grandfather, Jeptha Gilead Speaks. I know quite a lot about Jeptha’s life, spouse, and children. I used some of that information to keep my research question focused and my research on target. Here is the question about these rather nebulous relatives that I’ve been researching for about three years:

“Who were the parents of Jeptha Gilead Speaks (b. 1828, Indiana—d. 1871, Osage, Bourbon, Kansas) who was married to Nancy Hold in 1847?”

As I find information, it is evaluated against that question, and then correlated with other records and information bits that answer (or not) the research question. I’ve categorized my notes around different subjects that I will use to answer the research question. These subjects include:

• What I know about Jeptha Speaks’ life and how that research helped answer the question.
• How location and history helped answer the question.
• Analysis of specific information pieces that tell me who his parents could not be.
• Analysis of specific information pieces that tell me who his parents probably were.
• DNA analysis that links me to Jeptha’s grandfather.
• Who Jeptha’s parents probably were, and the specific evidence that supports this conclusion.

Because I have had a focused research question driving this project, and organized my notes around it, I can write the first draft of my report using this framework as an outline.

I’ve learned that taking the time to do the fundamental task of creating a focused research question on the front end of any research, saves me incredible amounts of time and headaches as I work through my projects.

What are some of the ways research questions have helped you in your work? Leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you!

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^[1]Thomas W. Jones, “Chapter 2: Concepts Fundamental to the GPS,” Mastering Genealogical Proof (Arlington, Virginia: National Genealogical Society, 2013), pages 7-8.

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The image: Nancy Hold Speake, wife of Jeptha Gilead Speaks (Fawn Creek, Kansas), photograph, 1908, digital image, 2018, privately held by R. Johnson, [address private] Washington, 2018.