Help! Historical and Genealogical Truth: How do I separate fact from fiction?

Carol Baxter, the History Detective, is a Fellow of the Society of Australian Genealogists and an adjunct lecturer at the University of New England (NSW). She started tracing her family history while she was still at high school and gained employment in the industry when she was aged 24. She worked as Project Officer for the Australian Biographical and Genealogical Record and later as General Editor of its 21st century incarnation, the Biographical Database of Australia. In those roles, she edited many publications dealing with Australian colonial records. Currently, she is a full-time writer and speaker and lives in Sydney, Australia. She also gives seminars at genealogical conferences on land and on international cruise ships. Carol is the internationally-acclaimed, award-winning author of five works of popular history (or ’historical true-crime thrillers’ as the reviewers call them): ＂An Irresistible Temptation＂ (2006), ＂Breaking the Bank＂ (2008), ＂Captain Thunderbolt and his Lady＂ (2011), ＂The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable＂ (2013) and ＂Black Widow＂ (2015). Her fourth book was published to international acclaim. ＂The Times＂ (London) praised it as being ’as lively and readable as a crime novel’ while London’s ＂Independent＂ said that it was ’totally irresistible’. She recently received a commission from Allen & Unwin for another true-crime thriller, which will be published in 2017. After Carol’s second ’popular history’ was published, genealogists started asking her to help them write more interesting family histories. She decided to make this information more readily available by writing the genealogical ’how to’ book, ＂Writing Interesting Family Histories＂ (2009 & 2010). A companion volume titled ＂Writing and Publishing Really Interesting Family Histories＂ will be released in 2015/2016. During Carol’s years working in the genealogy industry and as a true-crime writer, she developed rigorous research strategies that would ensure that her research was exhaustive and that her conclusions were accurate. These proved their worth when she experienced strident criticism from bushranger aficionados and family historians who resented her evidence-based conclusions regarding bushranger, Captain Thunderbolt (they preferred to believe the myths). These strategies lie at the heart of ＂Help! Historical and Genealogical Truth: How do I separate fact from fiction?＂. Carol has more genealogical ’how to’ books in the pipeline. See: www.carolbaxter.com.