Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Downsizing when you’re the family historian

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I was so delighted to see in my email this week that my friend, Amy Johnson Crow, is promoting the podcast episode she and I recorded back in the fall of 2019, Downsizing and Family History.

When I spoke to her in 2019 I didn’t have any personal experience with dealing with inherited family history items. I always viewed my parents as non-collectors and figured when the time came I wouldn’t be faced with too many challenges. But I’ve gained some experience now and there were plenty of challenges. In March, my father’s older sister moved into skilled nursing and I sold her home for her. (I’m her Power of Attorney.) I requested that any family-history related items be taken to my father’s condo for me to go through later. Then in May, I moved my father into assisted living and faced down going through his stuff and my aunt’s stuff in the same week so I could get his condo on the market. He passed away August 20, only three months after moving, and I needed to clear out his assisted-living apartment in a matter of a few days.

I tried to practice what I preach and get in touch with what’s important to me about these documents and photos. I tried to evaluate their potential value for future historians. I offered a bunch of stuff to my brothers (one took stuff, the other didn’t). And I shipped some boxes to myself.

I have sorted through the seven boxes I shipped in May but am still processing those documents and photos. I am anticipating a shipment today of stuff from my father’s apartment. I’ll spend some time in the coming week going through those items and figuring how/where to store them. I know that Stacy Julian’s method, How to BEGIN with the BOX, will be very helpful again.

As the family historian for my family, I feel a lot of responsibility for these items. But I’m going to use my expertise as a professional organizer to try to save those items that are the most valuable from a genealogy standpoint. My perspective, as I shared on Amy’s podcast, is that the more I keep of any one category of item, the less special any of it is. But I also know that now isn’t the best time to make decisions with lasting repercussions. So I will probably save more than I might otherwise for later consideration.

If you’ve been through this, I’d be very interested in hearing about your approach!

 

Let’s do a September 30 x 30 challenge!

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I apologize for my absence over the last few weeks. My father, Gene Adams, who was just three weeks shy of his 92nd birthday, passed away on 20 August 20 2022. I am still in Walla Walla, Washington, handling arrangements. The memorial service will be held on 1 September 2022 (we waited until my brother could get here from Australia).

I can think of no better way to honor him than by focusing on researching his family in September. It will be a great way for me to get back into the swing of genealogy research, after work- and family-related interruptions. And it will keep him present in my life on a daily basis (not that he wouldn’t be otherwise).

So I’m committing to doing 30 minutes of genealogy research a day for 30 days. I probably won’t start until September 3, because I’ll be flying back to St. Louis on the September 2. Would you like to join me? If so, please comment below. I find these challenges to be a great way to keep me focused on my research.

Finding time to research

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Ticking clockI’ve been having a frustrating month in terms of my genealogy research. I’m managing a complicated, multiple-destination move from a very large house for one of my organizing clients and simply don’t have much time left in my day for enjoyable things like genealogy research. (Luckily, I love this client and I love managing complicated moves.) Today, I’m adapting a blog post I wrote back in 2015 because the message resonates with me so much.

I love doing genealogy research. It’s a fairly big part of my life—because of this blog I actually think about my family research quite a lot. But I don’t always get to research as often as I’d like. And that’s a shame, because researching my family history feeds my soul.

We’re all busy with the daily activities of life. Throw kids, aging parents, demanding work, needy spouses or sick pets into the mix and sometimes it feels like we don’t have any time to do those things that really nourish us.

I believe that doing those things is really important for self care. So how can we find the time?

Time management is all about managing priorities. If you put everyone’s needs before your own, all you’ll be doing is putting out fires. And that’s not good for you. So I think it’s important to figure out little pockets of time that you can set aside as “me time.” During that special time, you can do that thing that keeps you going and that feeds your soul.

How can you find some pockets of time when you’re already so busy?

  • Get up a half hour early to do soul-nourishing activities
  • Drop an activity that you’re doing because you think you should, not because you want to
  • If you’re a TV watcher, have a no-TV day each week and put that time toward your desired activity
  • Find people who also do what you want to do (like a knitting group) and agree to do that activity together.
  • Block off time on your calendar to do something that feeds your soul
  • Explain to your family your need to have to time of your own and arrange for a redistribution of chores

The list could go on. Perhaps you just need to be a little creative.

If you’re saying to yourself, I can’t take time out for myself while my house is messy…that’ll have to wait until I get organized then please stop. It breaks my heart when people stop their messy homes from allowing them to live. Sure, work on your home, bit by bit (or hire someone to help you), but reward your efforts with some soul-nourishing activity.

Our lives our important and they should be as happy and fulfilling as possible. I’m a firm believer that we can take control of our time and do those things that bring fulfillment. If genealogy is important to you, perhaps you can find little pockets of time here and there to get back in touch (and stay in touch!) with your ancestors.

Can you make some time for yourself this weekend?

Photo by R.L. Hyde via Flickr

Quick Tip #37: Take the time to read about a collection

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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 now and then on a small topic that pops into my head. This one can save you time and effort.

Take the time to read about a collection

It can take some discipline to take the time to read about a collection when you’re researching. But these notes can be so valuable. They keep you from making false assumptions about the information you’re looking at. They might even solve a mystery.

Case in point: I found a collection on Ancestry of Appointments of U.S. Postmasters, 1832-1971. I found ancestors’ names in the collection but the columns on the pages lacked headers. Instead of trying to guess what each column meant, I read the information about the collection beneath the search box and source information. It helped me make sense of a fairly confusing set of pages.

It doesn’t take long to read about a collection and it can be time well spent!

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash