Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Another chance to hear The Imperfect Genealogist on Zoom

By 8 Comments

I was excited to be invited to present the talk I gave at RootsTech 2020, The Imperfect Genealogist, to the Greene County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society. The presentation will held on Zoom at 1:30 pm eastern time on Saturday, April 3. You can learn more about Greene County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society on their website.

The meeting is open to anyone and I was encouraged to let my blog readers know about it, in case you’re interested in attending. It’s free and you don’t even have to register. Just click on this Zoom link at 1:30 eastern on April 3 and join us!

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 and I discuss a lot on our podcast, Getting to Good Enough.

Feel free to let me know in the comments if you plan to attend!

Quick Tip #16: Don’t forget about your local library

By 4 Comments

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. I think this one’s a good reminder.

Don’t forget about your local library!

Here in St. Louis, our city and county library systems have some remarkable resources for genealogists. Both have genealogy rooms that I’ve enjoyed researching in. And they have expert staff members who provide great assistance. All of it’s free of charge.

Of course, the pandemic has made using the local library difficult. Here, branches have been closed off and on. The St. Louis County library genealogy room has been closed since the pandemic began. I traditionally rely on it to give me access to those documents from Family Search that are available only if you’re using the wifi system of an affiliate library. The county library has generously extended its wifi reach to its parking lot. Last week, I parked there and was able to download some documents from Family Search. Maybe that’s something you can do at your library too.

Even if your local library branch is closed, I urge you to check to see whether they are offering access to online databases or perhaps are allowing you to consult remotely with librarians. They may have expanded online resources because of the pandemic. Here in St. Louis, for example, the library edition of Ancestry.com is now available to county library card holders at home (while the genealogy room is closed). If you don’t have a library card, now’s a good time to get one!

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

We’re offering Declutter Happy Hour again!

By Leave a Comment

Each Wednesday in February, my podcast co-host, Shannon Wilkinson, and I taught a Declutter Happy Hour to a group of about 15 lovely participants. It was so much fun, we’ve decided to offer it again. The next session of the four-part class  will be held April 7, 14, 21, and 28 from 6 to 7:30 pm central daylight time. Click here to learn more and register.

As I said in my January post about the first session, Shannon and I created Declutter Happy Hour way back in 2009.  It started as a teleclass then morphed into an ecourse before we retired it. And it ended up being a precursor to our podcast.

We were thrilled to be invited by our friends at Fly Paper to bring Declutter Happy Hour back to life, this time via Zoom. And we’re doubly delighted to be offering a second session!

Declutter Happy Hour is a live experience where you get to do some decluttering during the class. I think it’s really special because it infuses the decluttering process with a secret ingredient: mindset change (plus fun and laughter).

Each of the four sessions starts with a discussion led by Shannon and me about an important aspect of the decluttering process and the mindset shift that can go along with it. Then, during the class, you get time to work on a small decluttering project. It could be something to do with your decluttering your genealogy research papers. Or you may want to tackle your linen closet (or any other space in your home). Or your hard drive. Whatever you decide to work on, Shannon and I will stay in the Zoom room, ready and waiting to answer any questions and provide support and encouragement.

By the end of four sessions you’ll have let go of more than just stuff and you’ll have the tools to take on decluttering projects on your own. (But you’d be welcome to  sign up for another session!)

Again, Declutter Happy Hour runs on Wednesdays in April starting at 6 pm central time. You can register at eventbrite. Let me know in the comments if you sign up!

How’d your February 30 x 30 challenge go?

By 24 Comments

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!