A friend is doing local history research and has found some genuinely interesting stuff. However, he left school at 16 and seems to have no idea of how to be discriminating with his sources

For example, he found a newspaper article from the 19thC which gives a different attribution for a locally well-known event. It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that the newspaper might be wrong. Getting the wrong member of a group is the sort of thing local papers are notorious for

He's earnest and dedicated but undereducated for the task he has set himself and I wondered if there was a beginner's guide to sources, especially contemporary sources I can get him for Christmas and present with a merry cry of, "you like history, don't you."

This sounds patronising and isn't meant to. Like I say, he's found some interesting new stuff which he wants to self-publish, but he's going to get shot down if he isn't more critical. Mrs Blogg's round the corner has her mother's diary of the event but the local council archives disagree, so how to weigh the two? That's the sort of thing he needs.