Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Florida State Genealogical Society announces its free webinars

By Leave a Comment

Here’s another great resource for genealogists. The Florida State Genealogical Society has announced the lineup for its upcoming “Poolside Chat” monthly webinar series. The webinars are available live free of charge to non-members. FSGS members are able to download the handouts as well as view archived webinars. An individual membership to FSGS costs just $25 a year. I think FSGS is making an amazing contribution to the genealogy community through this series, which they’ve been presenting for some years.

I was excited when I saw the line up to see that Julie Potter Miller is speaking on the Anatomy of a Civil War Pension File. I took her class at the 2015 NGS conference and it inspired me to immediately order my three Union veteran ancestors’ pension files from the National Archives and it helped me figure out what the heck to do with them. Julie’s webinar will be on July 18.

Other topics and presenters include J. Mark Lowe on early census records, Bob Inhoff on organizing genealogy records using OneNote, and Victor Dunn on scrutinizing evidence. Go to this page to see the line up. They still have a few webinars to schedule.

I’m not sure I have the availability required for live viewing, so I think I might pop for the $25 membership to allow me to watch on my schedule (and get the handouts).

I’m very excited by this learning opportunity. Thank you FSGS!

January 30 x 30 challenge: how’s it going?

By 11 Comments

It’s January 15 already and it’s time to report in on our progress with the 30 x 30 challenge. Twenty people signed on for the challenge, which involves doing genealogy research (or organizing or whatever you choose to do) for 30 minutes a day every day for 30 days. I’d love to hear how it’s going! Have you been able to research every day? Have you missed some days but gone back to it? Have you given up? I’d love to know what you’ve accomplished and what benefits you’ve found to researching daily (or trying to research daily).

I’ll start! I have indeed managed to research every day. Over the weekend I even researched several hours each day (and blogged about how I lost my focus). It’s been so nice to make daily research a priority again. It makes me feel more connected with my research (and my ancestors). I haven’t made any startling breakthroughs, but I am giving Trello a whirl for keeping track of genealogy tasks and I look forward to writing a future post about how that is working out.

If you’re participating in the challenge (regardless of whether you officially said you were), please check in!

Giving myself permission to be unfocused

By 13 Comments

It's okay to be unfocused sometimesI’ve been so focused on being focused that my brain rebelled this weekend. We had a foot of snow here in St. Louis and I wasn’t going anywhere. That meant I could spend more time than usual on my genealogy research. But I just couldn’t focus. I was all over the place.

I blogged last week about how my research log keeps me focused. This morning, I discovered that I was so scattered that I didn’t even write in my log yesterday! I was able to recall most of what I did and create a log entry after the fact. But today I was equally scattered in my session.

And you know what? I’ve decided that’s okay. I did write my next steps in my log and when I get back to it tomorrow morning (which will by necessity have to be a short session), I’m hoping to have more focus. I think it was somewhat beneficial for me to clamber all over my family tree this weekend. Here’s why:

  • I’d been starting to get frustrated at my inability to find some specific documents that would help prove that a grave marker I found on Find a Grave indeed belongs to my family members. Walls (brick or otherwise) aren’t fun.
  • I started thinking about other resources I have in my possession that would be helpful to review (rather than focusing on my online research).
  • I certainly didn’t suffer from tunnel vision this weekend!
  • I decided to give Trello a try for some genealogy to-dos, inspired by comments on the 30 x 30 challenge post from reader Jerry Hereford. (More on that when I’m able to give it a more focused try.)
  • It’s always good when I’m placed in the shoes of people who are asking for my organizing help (genealogy or otherwise). If you sometimes feel unfocused, please know that I can empathize!

So instead of considering my hours of genealogy research this weekend unproductive, I’m going to embrace my lack of focus. I’ll note the ideas and clues sparked by my trips down rabbit holes and let them inspire future research. I’m not going to beat myself up. I’ll just try get back to my focused self tomorrow.

Photo by Robin Spielmann on Unsplash

How my research log keeps me focused

By 10 Comments

Ever since I got serious about genealogy in 2012, I’ve struggled with keeping a research log. (Before that, I didn’t even consider keeping one.) In March 2017, after a few unsuccessful attempts at other formats, I settled on keeping my research log in Evernote with a simple note per session where I take free-form notes and always end the note with next steps. The notes are kept in a notebook by year. In April 2017, I blogged in detail about my informal research log. And in March 2017, I blogged about why keeping a research log is important. (If you click on that link, be sure and read the comments, which are really insightful.)

I’m in the middle of a 30 x 30 challenge and therefore researching daily in short sessions. I’m proud that there is a note for each day this month in my 2019 Research Log notebook. One benefit I’m seeing of my research log is that it’s keeping me focused and saving me time. And I appreciate that!

I always write next steps at the bottom of each entry. (True confession: Sometimes, during unproductive sessions, I just copy and paste the next steps from the previous day.) That means that when I sit down to research, all I have to do is pull up the previous day’s session notes and I know exactly what to work on. No more paralysis with the question “What should I work on today?”

Also, writing down what I’m doing seems to keep on task. I try to write as I go with frequent notes in my log each session. Sometimes, though, I end up doing a brain dump at the end of the session. Writing down what I’m doing or have done, keeps my research question top of mind.

When I come across a clue that I want to explore in the future (about a different research question or a different family than the one I’m researching today), I write it down in a follow up folder. I keep follow folders by surname and check them every now and then.

Staying focused is so hard in genealogy research with so many wonderful things to explore and so many temptations put right in front of us. A research log–in concert with follow-up folders to jot down future tasks–is my secret weapon for staying focused. My research log is far from perfect. But it’s consistent and, I’m finding, very helpful.

I have a Facebook group called Genealogy Research Loggers. Please join if you’re interested in research logs!