How do I do genealogy?

When I was young and had time to do things other than genealogy, I used to practice archery from time to time. I would set up various targets to shoot at in the yard, which was big enough to use for the activity. Inevitably, I would shoot all of my arrows and miss the target at least a couple of times. In targets, think cardboard box, not the nice straw kind with big circles. Anyway, there were a couple things I did know when I started to search for my lost arrows. First, the arrow could only go a certain distance and second, I instinctively knew that there was no use looking in the next lot or across the street, the arrow was somewhere in the general direction of the target and only at a limited distance. I would then systematically examine the ground in the direction of the arrows and would always find all my arrows.
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