Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

NARA 2019 Virtual Genealogy Fair is tomorrow!

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This one really snuck up on me.

The 2019 Virtual Genealogy Fair is being offered (free of charge) by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) tomorrow, Wednesday, October 23, 2019. This is the seventh year for the conference, offered by webcast on YouTube. It’s a wonderful resource.

You can read the lineup, with detailed descriptions of the sessions and links to handouts, here. Just click on each session title to access the handouts. There will be six one-hour sessions, bookended by opening and closing remarks. The event starts at 10 am eastern and ends at 4.

I’m traveling tomorrow, so I was thrilled to read that I don’t have to watch live. The webcast will be available on YouTube to watch later. You can even request transcripts of the sessions, taken from the closed captioning.

While you’re on the 2019 Virtual Fair webpage, scroll down to access links to prior Virtual Genealogy Fairs sponsored by NARA. Those are available to watch as well!

What Facebook genealogy groups do you belong to?

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I think Facebook groups are a great way to gain knowledge, ask specific questions, and stay connected. I don’t belong to any genealogy-related family Facebook groups, but I know it can be a great to meet cousins.

I’d love to hear from readers of this blog what Facebook groups you recommend. I’m hoping to learn about groups that I didn’t know about–and I’m hoping this post will help OYFH readers as well.

Here are the Facebook groups I belong to, listed in the order of frequency of my reading. (However, since Facebook puts in front of me those groups that I interact with, the order is always changing and not particularly relevant.)

  • Genealogy Research Loggers (that’s the group I run, specifically about genealogy logs)
  • The Genealogy Squad
  • The Organized Genealogist
  • Genealogy! Just Ask!
  • Genealogy Organizers (specifically for professional organizers)
  • Evernote Genealogists
  • Technology for Genealogy
  • Ancestral DNA for Dummies
  • Genealogy – Cite Your Sources
  • Geneabloggers Tribe
  • Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness
  • Washington State Genealogy Network
  • Kentucky Genealogy Network
  • St. Louis Genealogical Society

You can find any of these groups by typing their name in the Facebook search box. Some require approval.

Please let me know what groups you love and which ones I need to make sure I check out!

October 30 x 30 mid-month check in

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It’s October 15 already and we’re halfway through the current 30 x 30 challenge. How’s it going? Please let everyone know in the comments.

I am  happy to report that I have not missed a day! I did so poorly in the August challenge that this month I was bound and determined to succeed in the challenge. So I made genealogy research a true priority. Mostly, I accomplished this by researching first thing in the morning. Most days I set a timer and researched for the full 30 minutes. Some days I went a little longer and some days a little shorter.

I am traveling now, visiting my dad in Walla Walla, Washington. I have still been able to keep up with the research, which is great. Mostly I’ve been processing the documents that I found in my June research trip to Kentucky. I’m almost finished with those. But I’ve also added to my backlog this month, so my initial goal of eliminating the backlog has gone by the wayside. But I’m still happy with my performance on the challenge.

One nice, motivating factor has been the opportunity to discuss family history with my 89-year-old dad. He did some reminiscing about his childhood and I was able to fill him in on some details of his grandparents’ and great grandparents’ lives. He really enjoyed that, as did I.  That’s been keeping me going with my 30 minutes of daily research each day while I’m here!

How about you? If you signed on for the challenge, how’s it going?

Don’t forget to check the next page on the census!

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Recently, I was doing some research with the 1850 census and almost missed a 10-year-old child in the family because he was listed on the next page. I’ve developed the good habit of always looking to the next page when the family I’m researching is on the last line of a census page. But in this case, though the family was last, there were two blank lines on the page, so I didn’t bother to click ahead. (That’s a snip of the page at the top of this post.) I’m not sure what caused me to look about a half hour later, but I’m glad I did!

That’s such a easy mistake to make, I thought I’d mention it here. Of course, even if the family you’re researching isn’t the last family on a census page, it’s a good practice to look at the next (and previous) page to observe their neighbors and see whether there are other family members living nearby. Lesson learned!

ETA: I had a feeling that there would be some great comments to this post that would provide additional advice and information and I was right! Please be sure and read the comments. And thank you to those who have commented!