During my brick wall research coaching project with the ForeverⓇ professional genealogist, one of the first assignments was to create location folders for the birthplaces of my ancestor and his wife.  Besides wanting to know who his parents were, I was also curious about how he met his wife.

Creating a locality research reference guide first helps to better understand what events occurred in these locations at a given time.  This also provides some idea of where ancestor families were living geographically.  

Furthermore, locality research provided guidance in finding vital records.  Defining locations and the history behind them gave direction as to where to find these records both online and offline.

I created location folders in both digital format within my Google Drive and paper format in a binder dedicated to collecting locality research findings.  I would build a research reference guide to support documents such as Google Docs and Sheets in Google Drive and printouts of important information discovered along the way.

I also began a collection of information about the language spoken in the locations researched.  The birthplaces being researched had more than one language associated with them.  Political events resulted in my ancestors becoming subjects under rule of nearby countries over time.  

Knowing the language type at a given period of time was significant.  There was a strong possibility the vital records would be in one of three kinds of languages or a combination of them. 

I added information collected about these languages in both my Google Drive and my location binder.  In Google Drive, I created subfolders for each language.  In the binder, I created separate tabs for each country, placing the language information with the correct country. 

My ForeverⓇ professional genealogist provided me with lists for both cumulative research resources and cumulative methodology resources.  These included online links to websites providing information on geographical locations, specifically in Eastern Europe, and resources for locality research, methodologies and many other topics.  

Helpful links included:

• JewishGen.org’s Communities Database (an excellent resource for Eastern European locations, regardless of whether or not your ancestor is Jewish).  Check out FamilySearch’s PDF (click here https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/img_auth.php/e/e7/1_-_Instruction_-_JewishGen_Communities_JMR.pdf ) for more information about this resource.
• FamilySearch Wiki https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Main_Page 

As a result, I was able to visualize the why behind my ancestor’s family’s movement in Eastern Europe over a period of time.  This also helped fill in gaps in a timeline before and up to my ancestors’ births with migration maps.  I also was able to identify where vital records could be to assist with answering a brick wall research question.  Locality research made this possible.