Negative Search Results

By Eventide on Fri, 09/27/2019 - 09:17

Forums

I'm currently creating a research report for a friend who asked me to locate his birth mother. He was born in Nairobi, Kenya in the 1960's and immediately adopted into an American diplomatic family. He has no adoption records, birth certificate, only the name of his birth mother. We are just beginning the search and have decided to see what we can find with online records only at this time.

That said, a search on the major ancestry data bases, social media and a Google search come up with no results whatsoever. I have searched her name, variations of her name and have used wild cards. It turns out Ancestry and FamilySearch for example do not really have databases from this area of the world.

I'm stumped on how to present all this.

Although I have found some information by getting creative I am unsure how to present the negative search results in the Research Report. Should I lay it all out in the body and then simply cite the sources, or state in the body just that results have not been found by searching XXX sources, and then put all the parameters of the search in the citation?

I am not even sure what that citation would look like. Sounds complicated to me but perhaps I am overthinking this?

 

 

Submitted byEEon Sat, 09/28/2019 - 20:01

Eventide, a research report for this type of project would typically contain six parts:

  1. A background section in which you identify the client, the person to be searched for (with all identifying details and associations provided by the client), and a reiteration of the client's stated objective.
  2. A research plan, in which you identify all relevant sources and methods, with full citations for every source and all necessary explanations of the methodology.
  3. An "executive summary" in which you summarize the results.
  4. A section in which you report all findings, analyze each, and provide whatever discussion is necessary.
  5. A work plan detailing what should next be done, again both sources and methods.
  6. An appendix in which you attach the relevant records that you found.

If a project resulted in absolutely no findings whatsoever, then you obviously would not have parts 4 and 6.

How to cite what you've used is already taken care of in part 2. Your most critical challenge will be part 3 in which you explain to your client how the work you've done--even though nothing was found--helps to advance his project by eliminating the likeliest or most accessible resources, by suggesting certain new directions, etc. If, in the course of analyzing what the client provided or conducting the search itself, you saw problems with the details the provided or other situations that need analyzing, this should definitely be added. It is here and in your work plan for the future that the client should recognize the value she or he has received despite the negative results of the first block of work.

Submitted byEventideon Mon, 09/30/2019 - 11:37

Hi thanks for the feedback, but I am still not sure. I had provided him a research plan before I started the research, but didn't go into detail about all the search parameters I would try. I'm pretty new at this so I'm sorry if I am not catching on.

I do have some findings, but none of them resulted from searches at Ancestry, FamilySearch, facebook, google etc.

Essentially I wrote this in the report for Ancestry & FamilySearch and repeated similar paragraphs for search engines and social media. But it seems overly complicated I think for the  person reading it. 

An index search for Ragnhild Ryckebusch and variations on the surname such as Rijkebusch on both Ancestry and FamilySearch turned up 0 results. Alternative searches with * used as a wildcard on both the forename and the surname also did not turn up any useful results. Search on the surname with location of Kenya, Africa also turned up 0 results. Widening the location to include nearby countries also turned up nothing. A search was also done using her married name, Ragnhild Hollander which also did not turn up any significant results.

citation

1. Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 25 September 2019). 

This just doesn't seem right to me.

 

 

Eventide, you state "This just doesn't seem right to me."

If we're correct in assuming that (a) your paragraph "An index search for ..." is taken from your report; and that (b) your citation to Ancestry is attached to that paragraph in your report, then the reason the citation does not seem right would be that your citation offers nothing more than what you've already stated in the report itself.

What you are describing in your report is your search-engine parameters. That description does not require a citation.