Where was I?

May 16, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I can use this form to plan my next family history research session

For me, the biggest impediment to starting a research session is not knowing exactly what to work on. Today, I was reading an article on what to do with the last few minutes of the workday and was struck by a suggestion from Julie Morgenstern, a hugely successful professional organizer. She suggests spending a couple of minutes to identify the most important thing you’ll do in the first hour of work the next day.

I do something like this for my work life (I plan the top four priorities for tomorrow), but it occurred to me this could be really useful for my family history research. If, at the end of each research session, I identified a few things to work on in the next session, the question of what to work on would disappear. I’ve flirted with this before, but what struck me today was that I could create a form (I love forms!) that I would fill out at the end of each session and keep it handy for the beginning of the next session.

I have a similar form for my work day (here’s a link to it on Pinterest), so I adapted it for my family history research. It’s pictured on this post. At the top I have the top four research items to work on. At the bottom, I have a checklist of things to make sure I do as I close up the session.

I think this form will go a long way toward getting me past that barrier to getting started. And making it easier to get started will help me carve out little bits of time to do my research.

 

 

Filed Under: Challenges, Organizing Tagged With: , ,

What should I work on today?

September 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I try to work on family history research at least once a week. (Writing a post on this blog twice a week has helped motivate me!)  I appreciate that I have the time to work on it that frequently, but I’ve discovered that sometimes it seems not quite frequent enough to keep my momentum going. By the time another week rolls around, I can’t quite remember where I left off and I don’t know what I should work on.

I know from my experience as a professional organizer that not knowing where to start can be paralyzing. I see this in my clients who are dealing with a lot of clutter: they can’t figure out where to start, so they don’t start at all.

This happened to me last Saturday. When I sat down to work on genealogy research, I couldn’t think of where to start. Of course, the truth is that I can start literally anywhere on my family tree. There’s always something to work on. I’m working my way up my tree and sometimes when I make a link to a new generation, I’ll skip ahead to work on finding information about those folks, even when there’s still plenty of information to seek on a generation closer to me in time.

So I could play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey when it comes to my family tree and pick any relative and start looking for more information on them. But I’m not keen on such a random approach (though that might be fun to try some day).

As it turned out, last weekend, I remembered that I’d found military information on an ancestor in a family history I’d downloaded, which led to some fun exploration.

At one point, when I first got back into this research, I kept a hand written research journal, which I filled out at the end of each research session and one of the items I would enter is next steps. Somehow, that has fallen by the wayside, but it would be a good habit to get back into.

Here are some ways I can think of to make sure that I don’t get paralyzed or delayed by the “what should I work on” question:

  • Keep a running list of questions to research. When I come across something I want to look into further (but don’t have time to research at that moment), I can add it to the list
  • Keep a “next steps” journal that I add to at the end of each research session
  • Start an electronic checklist for each ancestor of items to research, so I can tell at a glance what information is still up for grabs
  • Pick an ancestor at random and start exploring
  • On the other end of the spectrum, I could set up a very systematic approach and work through a single surname before I move to another

My personality is such that a systematic approach would feel constricting. I think keeping a list of things to work on and selecting the puzzle that jumps out at me that day is probably what’s going to work for me.

The key here, I think, is to know that there’s no wrong answer to the question, “What should I work on now?” That’s the beauty of this research. As long as I’m documenting what I find so that I don’t end up spending loads of times on false leads, any research I do is productive.

Filed Under: Challenges, Organizing, Reflections Tagged With: , , ,

My quest to learn more about my family history

June 14, 2012 By 2 Comments

It all started about ten years ago. I was on a trip to visit my parents (who live about 1,500 miles away from me) and my mother shared with me a print out of a family history narrative that a cousin of hers created some fifteen years before. On that same trip, my father’s sister shared some info from their side of the family. Through these documents, I found out that my family had connections with the early settlement of what is now New York City, as well (on the other side) with none other than Daniel Boone.

Back then I didn’t have a laptop, so I went to an internet cafe and started looking around on genealogy websites to see what I might learn. I was amazed at how easy it was to find out more. Granted, I wasn’t verifying any information, just taking it at face value, but I quickly learned that on both sides of my family we have deep American roots.

I joined Ancestry.com and consulted familyhistory.org and started creating handwritten Ancestry Charts. Before I knew it, I had over 120 pages of four-generation sheets.

Overwhelm rears its head

Then I started feeling overwhelmed about next steps. And then I got busy starting my business as a professional organizer. While the interest was still there, the time wasn’t so my family history research went on a hiatus.

But now I’m back. And I want to get started again. Ancestry.com looks different than it used to and I can tell there’s a whole lot more information available.

As I contemplate getting back into researching my family, I feel myself a little paralyzed by perfectionism. (This is actually unusual for me–I’m not much of a perfectionist.) I want to do this thing right and I’m not sure exactly where to go from here. I do know that I want to keep it organized so I can put my hands on information when I want it and to keep my mind from feeling muddled.

Where to start now?

That’s what this blog is going to be about: figuring out what to do, how to do it, how to organize it. I’ll also be sharing the discoveries, the mistakes and the joys that come along the way.

Thanks for reading and sharing this quest with me.

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: ,