Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Time for January 30 x 30 check in!

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It’s almost the middle of our January 30 x 30 challenge. For those of you who signed up, how is it going? Are you managing 30 minutes of genealogy research (or organizing or scanning or whatever it is you set out to do)?

My challenge was made a little extra challenging by travel. I was in Walla Walla, Washington, visiting my dad from January 3 to 12.  I’m happy to say that I did manage to research every day, but one of those days barely counts. The day I traveled home (a 12-hour journey by car and plane) I thought I’d get research done on the plane, but when I started working I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind. So the ten minutes I put in was barely productive. I give myself credit for at least trying, but execution was not impressive.

One thing that’s helped me get back on track is that yesterday, back at my desk, I decided to pull out my 2nd great grandfather’s Civil War pension file, which I’d received way back in 2015. At the NGS conference that year, I heard Julie Miller talk about these files: what they contain and how to process them. I immediately requested the complete pension files for my three Union veteran ancestors from the National Archives. I’ve already processed the other two but had not focused on the file of Benjamin Franklin Igleheart. Since I’ve turned my attention to the Igleheart line, this is a natural thing for me to work on.

Once I pulled it out of the file (I haven’t yet scanned it), I saw that I’d started by putting the pages in chronological order and created a source citation for the whole pension file. The next step is to create a source citation for each individual document, print the citation on a label and affix the label to the paper document before scanning the whole document. After it’s scanned, I’ll start transcribing it. Yesterday I spent 45 minutes creating the citations and their labels and got through about eleven documents before having to move on to something else. For the near future, this will be the project I’ll be working every day.

I’d forgotten how great it was to have a project like this that I can break down into tiny bites. I love knowing exactly what I’m going to be working on and I love that there are lots of little milestones in this giant project so I can celebrate my progress.

Enough about me. I hope your challenge is going well and I look forward to hearing about it in the comments!

My “good enough” research log

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My good enough research logWe’re in the midst of a 30 x 30 challenge this month so I’ve been researching every day. It feels great. I have no more than 30 minutes (sometimes less) to research most days this month, so I rely on my research log to help me start each session.

I’ve blogged before about my research log and its value. This month, because I’m working on my RootsTech talk “The Imperfection Genealogist,” I’ve been reflecting on the fact that my very informal research log is far from perfect. But it’s certainly good enough.

How do I know it’s good enough? It’s because I’m in touch with why I want to keep a research log and the ways I use it. For me, it’s about knowing what I’ve researched in a given session and (perhaps more importantly) what my next steps are. It also tells me at a glance how frequently I’m researching. I keep my research log in Evernote, but I track of all my documents and family tree elsewhere, so I’m not creating source citations or storing documents in my research log. You might have a research log for different reasons. And yours may be very different from mine. And that’s great.

My good-enough research log is an Evernote notebook by year (I started the 2020 research log notebooks ten days ago), pinned as a shortcut in the sidebar. Each time I research, I open the notebook, create a new note with today’s date, and then write in free from what I worked on that day. I write down the questions that come up. I write down any discoveries. And I end the session by writing down the next steps. That way, when I start the next session, whether it’s the next day or the next month, I know where to start. That’s been a huge time saver for me. (I blogged in more detail about my research log in this post. About a year ago, I wrote a post about how my research log keeps me focused.)

This month, I’ve added an Evernote template that allows me to check off that I completed a session and I also add how many minutes I researched, because I’m hoping that I’ll get in 900 minutes in the 30 x 30 challenge, even if I don’t manage 30 minutes in some individual sessions. This is motivating to me, because when I see the checkmarks each day it makes me want to not break the chain. I also jot down in a couple of words what type of work I did. The picture at the top of this post is screenshot of the note that contains the template, which is in addition to my usual daily note but also stored in the 2020 research log notebook. (To get that template, I clicked on New Note, then on Template right in the note, then Habit Tracker in the Template Gallery. That inserted the template into the note and I edited it a bit.)

When I first started contemplating creating a research log in 2012, I could understand its value but I got wrapped up in trying to do it perfectly. Predictably, my first attempts failed. But as soon as I got in touch with what I really wanted out a research log and I made it easy to accomplish, things fell into place. Now, I’m glad to say that I’ve developed a habit of logging my session every day.

A couple of years ago, I created a Facebook group called Genealogy Research Loggers. We’re a pretty quiet group, but if you’d like some help and accountability for creating a research log habit, please join us!

My 2020 genealogy goals

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I have a confession to make. I’m good at setting genealogy goals at the beginning of the year but I’m very bad at paying attention to them. One of the problems is that in the past I’ve set up complicated (though measurable) goals that I’m not able to keep top of mind. I set a complicated goal chart as part of my 2015 goals and I’m pretty sure I didn’t look at it all year. Another problem I’ve encountered is that my genealogy goals were sometimes unrealistic. In the post linked above, I wrote, “I’ve learned that when I create unrealistic goals I tend to ignore them.” That is so true.

So this year, I’m keeping it simple. I’ve decided to focus on my paternal great grandmother’s line, the Iglehearts, after having spent a couple of years researching her husband’s line. It’s full of opportunity because I have a Civil War Union veteran in that line (Benjamin Franklin Igleheart, 1845-1913) whose Civil War pension file I haven’t yet transcribed or analyzed. I can also trace myself back to the Mayflower on that line, but I haven’t verified everyone in that path. I’m excited to shift gears a little and focus on some different people.

Here are the goals I set out for myself for 2020, which I wrote in Evernote on an airplane ride on January 3. They feel gentle and realistic.

  2. Transcribe Benjamin Franklin Igleheart’s Civil War pension
  3. Trace myself back to the Mayflower by Thanksgiving
  4. Eliminate the downloaded documents backlog
  5. Create habit of processing documents as I download them
  6. Keep logging each research session (including next actions)
  8. Consume purchased learning resources
  9. Watch at least one webinar a week

If I can build a daily-research habit and a habit of watching a webinar every week, this will be a huge win. I think the practices outlined above will help stay in touch with my research and give me focus if I flounder. My goal of cultivating a daily research habit probably will mean lots of 30 x 30 challenges in 2020!

I tend to select a word of the year at the beginning of each year and this year’s word is INTENTION. These genealogy goals feel full of intention and I really think my word will bring me back to them every day.

How about you? Did you create genealogy goals for 2020? If so, feel free to share them!

 

Photo by Hobbies on a Budget via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

It’s (finally) time for another 30 x 30 challenge!

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Happy to new year to all my readers! Boy, do I need a 30 x 30 challenge. I have been so disconnected from my research since my last 30 x 30 challenge in October, first because of National Novel Writing Month and then I was slammed with work for my organizing business in December. So my research has been quite dormant, which makes me sad.

Starting January 1 I commit to doing 30 minutes of genealogy research every day for 30 days. Will you join me?

The first step for me–which I hope to do before January 1 rolls around–will be getting back in touch with what I was doing with my research. I’ll do that by reviewing my informal research log. I hope to take some time this weekend to set some goals for my genealogy research in 2020 as well. I think that I’m going to try to keep them simple this year, with an emphasis on daily research. (If there’s one thing that these 30 x 30 challenges have taught me, it’s the value of daily research.)

So please let me know in the comments if you’re interested in participating in the January 2020 30 x 30 challenge. I’ll do a mid-month status report that I’ll invite you to participate in. Otherwise it’s very low key…just an opportunity to get back into daily research knowing that others are doing it with you.

Can’t wait to get into daily research!