BoliviaGenWeb

A WorldGenWeb Project

How to Start

1. Find out what has been done

2. Analyze materials collected

3. Determine objectives and make a plan for research

4. Follow plan, use primary sources, record data

5. Review data recieved, and make new objectives

1. Find out what has been done

In order to find out what has been done, you need to check home and family sources, contact other family members, check www.familysearch.org databases, check for published family histories and bibliographies. Any information that ANY family member can provide will narrow down your research. It also helps with preventing duplication of research, or a lot of time and effort.

2. Analyze materials collected

Take a family group sheet, PAF, or some other organizational method, and fill it with the information you collected from step 1.

3. Determine objectives and make plan for research

From step 2, we can see what information is still missing. From this, we create objectives to find certain information for specific people. There are two main categories for research- Church and Civil. In Bolivia, the main church is the Catholic church, for which many parishes exist throughout the land. Bolivia is divided into Departments, and Provinces. The most useful sources are the Catholic church records, which are availble at the nearst LDS Family History Center. These places can become you best friends, since The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints houses the largest library on family history in the world.

4. Follow plan, use primary sources, record data

     The most useful records in Bolivian family history, are the Catholic church records, since they stretch back even to the 1700's. The church records include birth/baptism, marriage, and death. The census in Bolivia didn't start until the mid 1900's, so they aren't very useful.
     I am working on a project to analyze the locality of all the Catholic church records, with hopes that this will help family historians find parishes that are close to where their family is, without doing a ton of research.
     Then you can choose the parishes that might have your families records, and make objectives to view those films for which information is needed. Remember, if you DO NOT have an exact date for an event for a person in your family, you will want to look 5 or 10 years less and more than the approximation you made- so that you won't miss it.

5. Review data recieved, make new objectives

If you were successful, it is possible that the rest of your family might be in that same area, since Latin families rarely move locations. If you were not successful, check other local parishes found nearby, make new objectives, and keep searching.