Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

How’d your February 30 x 30 challenge go?

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The February 30 x 30 challenge is over (or almost over depending on when you started). How did it go? Did you work on your goal every day? Did you find that the challenge helped keep you on task?

I did pretty well. My plan was to work every day, even if it wasn’t for 30 minutes, and I was going focus on going through my source documents, making sure that I had plucked all the information from each document, attached it to the source record and properly cited it. I hoped to get through 30 documents.

It didn’t quite work out that way. I was able to work every day until February 25. That’s when RootsTech started and when I went off the rails of my 30 x 30 challenge. But I was okay with that, since with RootsTech I was at least thinking about genealogy. I thought it would be quick to go through my source documentation but what ended up happening was that the source documents sparked more questions (typically about collateral relatives who early on I wasn’t researching). So I pursued more information, rather than putting aside these bright shiny objects for later. The result? I had an enjoyable 26 days of daily research. But I verified only 10 sources! (Sources 91 through 100.) I still call it a successful month, though.

I hope you were even more successful than me. If you participated in the challenge, please let us know in the comments how you did!

How to watch RootsTech Connect

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As you may know, the 2021 all-virtual RootsTech conference (dubbed RootsTech Connect this year), is going on right now. I have not been able to watch much of it yet, despite it being on my calendar for months. But I have explored the website a little bit and I’m blown away with the learning opportunities.

The great news is that most of the sessions will be available to watch until next year’s RootsTech in March 2022 (which is scheduled to be held in person). You can watch as many sessions as you want now. They’re available on demand. Live keynotes are available on a schedule. My understanding is that the keynotes will be available to watch after the conference.

But there are features that are probably going to be available only during the conference (that is, through Saturday). They include:

  • Chat, where you can interact with like-minded genealogists
  • Relatives at RootsTech, where you can see how many people who are registered for the conference are related to you through the Family Search tree. So far, I have 37,376 relatives attending the conference! (A quick tip: I found that when I clicked on “See Your Relatives” using Safari, I got an error message. But it works just fine in Chrome and Firefox.)
  • Searching for your friends who are attending see how you might be related (my dear friend and podcast co-host, Shannon Wilkinson, and are 9th cousins once removed!)

(I don’t know for a fact that these will be going away after the conference, but I don’t want to take any chances.)

There are lots of ways to approach participating in RootsTech, but here’s what I suggest (and this is what I plan to do this weekend when I’ll have more time):

  1. Go to the Rootstech website.
  2. Login to your Family Search account (or create one if you don’t already have one).
  3. Click on Menu, then Relatives at RootsTech to find your relatives and see how you’re related. If you want, send relatives a message either by clicking on Send a Message under their name or through the little Connect box at the bottom of the home screen.
  4. Click on Guide Me for some suggestions on what you might want to watch or if you’re feeling confused, watch the Website Tutorial by clicking the button near the top of the screen.
  5. Alternatively, if you know what you want to watch, click on Sessions and search or browse for sessions.
  6. Add sessions to your Playlist, so you watch them at your leisure.
  7. Join a chat room by clicking on Connect, then Chat Rooms. Click on the little magnifying glass to search for a particular group or interest.
  8. Explore the Virtual Expo Hall. You can browse or search for particular vendors.

The whole thing is free of charge and it’s an opportunity you don’t want to miss. I have always been blown away by how well organized RootsTech is. This RootsTech Connect conference takes it to another level.

I want to be clear, because my emails indicate there is some confusion, that I am not affiliated with RootsTech. I’ve been a speaker twice and I’m an enthusiastic  attendee, but otherwise I have nothing to do this amazing conference. I just want to make sure my readers are making the most of it!

 

 

 

 

Quick Tip #15: Resist the urge to print

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Here’s the next in my occasional series of bite-size Quick Tips. Click on the Quick Tips tag for my other Quick Tips. Because I tend to write longer posts, I wanted to provide a quick-to-read (and quick-to-write) post every couple of weeks on a small topic that pops into my head. This one changed my genealogy life.

Resist the urge to print

As a professional organizer, I know what a problem paper clutter can be. And I know how hard it can be to access unfiled paper (and so much paper is unfiled!). So I am a huge proponent of not printing genealogy documents I find online. Instead, I encourage you to download and file them.

The key to feeling confident about downloading, rather than printing, is to have a reliable file-naming protocol and folder structure so that you can find the documents. Mine is detailed in this post, but yours might be different. That’s great, as long as it works for you. When you download and file digitally, rather than print and file or put into binders, your documents are always at your fingertips when you’re at your computer, even if you’re at a library or repository. It can be a mindset shift, but I think it’s worth it.

It’s important to mention, as was brought up in the comments to this post, that it’s absolutely essential to backup your hard drive if you’re going to store your documents digitally. I wrote about this in my last quick tip.

For extensive information on going paperless in your genealogy research, check out the Paperless Genealogy Guide I wrote with scanning expert Brooks Duncan, available for purchase at his website, DocumentSnap.

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

You got this!

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I’m a big fan of the Yoga with Adriene YouTube channel. I’ve been doing at-home yoga via free videos hosted by Adriene Mishler for just over two years. I haven’t missed a day since April 1, 2020. This month I’m following her February calendar (called Bridge), doing the video she’s selected for the day.

Why am I mentioning this on my genealogy blog? Today’s video was called Yoga for Self Doubt. It was a lovely practice with an encouraging and empowering message. I love Adriene so much, I often ask myself how I can be more like her. I walked off the yoga mat today with the intention of being more empowering for my clients and the people who read my blogs. So I decided to simply express encouragement and empowerment on the blog today.

If you came to this website because you were confused or overwhelmed about how to organize your genealogy research, I’m here to tell you that as challenging as it might feel, you can do it. It it feels confusing, just get started and the confusion may clear up for you.

Try to let go of any fear that you’ll do it wrong. First of all, there isn’t a right way to organize your genealogy; there’s just the way that works for you. Secondly if you start on a path that doesn’t work for you, you can always tweak it.

Sometimes it can be helpful to do a do-over. Purchase some software, and start entering in your family tree, including only verified facts and citing your sources to back up those facts. That’s what I did when I abandoned my over 100 pages of hand-written (unsourced) five-generation pedigree charts about ten years ago. I take great comfort in knowing I have a solid tree (and I’m improving my source citations and gleaning more information as I work on my source documentation project this month).

If genealogy ever gets you down, please don’t beat yourself up. Remember you’re fully capable of getting back on course. Take a class. Sign up for next week’s Rootstech virtual conference so you can have access to hundreds of free educational sessions for a year. Keep reading genealogy blogs. Use social media to get advice or find cousins who can help.

If you have specific organizing questions related to genealogy, feel free to reach out to me via email and I’ll see if I can help.

Genealogy is an amazing hobby, but I know from experience it’s easy to feel bogged down or overwhelmed. Please don’t feel discouraged. You got this!