Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Reminder: I’m presenting The Imperfect Genealogist on April 3

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I posted about this a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to remind you that tomorrow (Saturday, April 3) at 1:30 Eastern time, I’ll be presenting a 45-minute talk (followed by 15 minutes of Q&A) for the Greene County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society. It’s the same talk, The Imperfect Genealogist, that I presented at last year’s RootsTech conference.

Saturday’s talk is free and open to the public. You don’t even have to register. Just click on this Zoom link at the appointed time and join us. The Zoom room will open at 1:00, there will be a short business meeting at 1:30 and my presentation will start around 1:50. (Again, all these times are Eastern Daylight Time.)

I’ll be talking about ways perfectionism can get in the way of enjoyable and productive genealogy research, along with some areas in genealogy where, in my opinion, good enough isn’t good enough. I’ll also be discussing some strategies for letting go of perfectionism. This is something my co-host, Shannon Wilkinson, and I discuss a lot on our podcast, Getting to Good Enough.

Speaking of my co-host, there’s also still time to sign up for Declutter Happy Hour, a four week class that Shannon and I are teaching on Zoom to help you let go of physical and emotional clutter in a fun and supportive atmosphere. It’s being held each Wednesday in April from 7 to 8:30 pm Eastern. Click here for more information and to buy a ticket.

Time for another 30 x 30 challenge!

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It’s that time again! I need a 30 x 30 challenge so badly because I barely got any genealogy research done in March. I love how a 30 x 30 challenge vaults research to the top of my daily task list.

Who would like to join me in committing to doing at 30 minutes of research a day for 30 days? (You’re welcome to customize the challenge in any way…it’s your challenge.) We’ll start on April 1.

In February’s challenge, I worked on checking the sources in my source documentation list and in the process added significantly to my backlog of documents to be processed. So this month, I’m going to focus on reducing that backlog. And I’m committing to process any new documents during the session I download them (because sometimes you have to do a little clarifying research when you’re busting the backlog). As I have in the past, I’ll keep a spreadsheet of my progress, so I can feel good about it (and, I hope, not feel overwhelmed).

Let me know in the comments if you’d like to join me! I’ll be posting a mid-month and end-of-the-month check in where we can share how it’s going. Here’s to a great month of research!

Quick Tip #17: Schedule time for genealogy education

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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 is one that will help me learn more without feeling behind or overwhelmed.

Schedule time for genealogy education

There are so many great learning opportunities in genealogy but it can be easy to miss out unless you become intentional about it. I suggest setting a regular time in an interval that works for you (say, every Saturday morning or the first Monday evening of the month) to focus on learning and expanding your genealogy skills.

This post is prompted by the fact that I have yet to watch any of the free RootsTech presentations that are available to watch on demand for the next year. I know that if I don’t set aside time to do it, the year will be over and I will have missed out. There are also free webinars offered monthly by the Southern California Genealogy Society and the Florida State Genealogy Society, though most of those are available live only (unless you’re a member). Those deserve a place on my schedule. (As do the piles of genealogy journals that go unread.)

If you schedule time for genealogy education, you’re much more likely to do it. Your future self will thank you!

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

If you’ve purchased an Orderly Roots guide…

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…I have a favor to ask.

I’m just about to publish a new Orderly Roots guide (called How I Do It: A Professional Organizer’s Genealogy Workflow; it will detail how I organize my genealogy research). I’m in the process of completing a new description page for the guides and I’d love to include a few testimonials.

No pressure, of course, but if you’d like to help me out, just answer any of these questions, by either commenting on this post or sending an email to janine@organizeyourfamilyhistory.com.

Here are my questions:

  • Which guide or guides did you purchase?
  • Did you find the guide helpful?
  • What kind of results did you see or feel because you read the guide?
  • Did the guide help you make any changes in how you organize or conduct your research?

Thanks in advance to anyone who wants to take the time to answer any of those of questions. I’ll put those who respond on a temporary email list so you’ll be the first to hear when How I Do It is published.