Several years ago, working on a family tree was almost like a full-time job. Depending on the extent of your family, it could very well have involved jetting all over the world and trying to pull out official records whenever possible.
Then, the internet arrived.
To say that this changed the face of the family tree would be an understatement. While we don’t have any statistics to hand, there’s no doubt that it’s suddenly become much easier and we would imagine that more and more people are tapping into this.
One specific type of research has proven to be immensely powerful for individuals researching their family. These are public records search services and through the course of this post we will take a look at some of the reasons they trump all other types of information-gathering that were once associated with the composition of a family tree.
It doesn’t matter if the subject doesn’t have Facebook
It was around a decade or so ago that family tree enthusiasts started to really appreciate Facebook. It was starting to appeal to the masses and this meant that the long, lost relative that they just hadn’t been able to track down suddenly might be found.
There’s no doubt that all of the above is completely true and Facebook changed the face of this research.
However, a public record search service has taken things to another level. While researchers might have got excited about the prospect of finding a person through social media, this excitement would be very much short-lived if they didn’t actually have an account.
This is a problem which doesn’t exist with the public records search. They contain all historic information meaning that theoretically at least, nobody is exempt from being found.
The search functionality is advanced
Again, if we compare to Facebook, the search functionality can be quite simplistic. In other words, you might be able to search for a name and maybe a former school, but that’s as far as it goes.
This is where one of the public records search services come into play. One of the unique selling points of these is that they have very advanced search functionality. In other words, there might be thousands of “John Smith’s” in the country, but if you know a few more details about the person you are looking for you can plug it in the system and receive the desired results. In other words, the search is a lot more granular.
Everything is official
As we all know, anything can be published in social media. When it comes to official records, this isn’t the case though. Everything that appears in these records is verified, and this means that if you do find the individual you are looking for you know you are viewing the correct details. Sure, you might not be able to see their latest holiday snaps which are visible on social media, but everything that is related to your family tree is there for all to see.
