On not making it neat — research method notes
A short methods pamphlet on keeping uncertainty visible in estate research. Eighty pages, plain cover, intended for working researchers and family editors.
I wrote this slowly between other work. It is the closest thing I have to a description of how I work, and I wrote it because I was being asked the same questions in correspondence often enough to make a small book the more efficient answer.
It is not a manifesto. It is not a how-to. It is a set of notes on the small editorial choices that, taken together, decide whether a piece of estate research keeps its uncertainty visible or quietly loses it.
Copies are with the parish offices I have worked with, two university archives, and a small mail-order list. I do not expect to reprint it.
