Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Quick Tip #25: Take another look at handwritten documents

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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. I have to remind myself of this one with more frequency than I’d like to admit.

Take another look at handwritten documents

We’ve all encountered names that have been poorly indexed. That’s because handwriting can be hard to transcribe. I find that I sometimes misinterpret handwritten words or numbers and enter them incorrectly into my Reunion software. That can lead to wrong assumptions and wild goose chases.

If you find you have conflicting evidence, take another look at the original document to make sure you recorded the evidence accurately. (It happened to me just yesterday, where I discovered that I’d written down that a woman had three living children, when in fact the number written on the census was five.) You may find a transcription error on your part that clears things up.

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

August 2021 30 x 30 wrap up!

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It’s the end of another 30 x 30 challenge! How did it go? Please use the comments to let us know how your challenge went.

I had a good month and the challenge certainly helped me prioritize genealogy research. (I’m so grateful for that!) I didn’t research every day–I missed four days total. But I was able to have a few sessions that were longer than 30 minutes, so my average was 37 minutes a day for the 30 days.

I started the month with a 20-document backlog of documents to be processed. In the first five days of the challenge, I focused on processing those documents and got the backlog down to 3. Then I found I needed to do a little more research, which added documents to the backlog, so it wasn’t until August 12 that I got my backlog completely eliminated. Then I went to town researching a particular collateral family group in my Rasco line and my backlog ballooned to as high as 32. Here we are at month’s end, and I still have 27 documents in my backlog. I hope to eliminate that by the end of September (though I’m not starting a new challenge until October).

I also spent a couple of sessions on the box of inherited documents I’m working on. All in all, it was a fun month combining new research with processing the documents from prior sessions. Doing daily research is so helpful to me and I hope to stick with it in the coming month!

How was your month? Please let us know in the comments!

Going through my box of inherited items: step one

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On November 13, 2020 I wrote these words in a blog post about Stacy Julian’s method for going through a box of family photos, documents and memorabilia.

“When I drove to Walla Walla in September, I took the opportunity to bring home a box of family stuff. It’s not so much documents as photos, but I intend to use Stacy’s framework as I go through it.”

Nine months later, I finally opened that box this past weekend. I was excited to use Stacy’s method, which I had first heard about in her terrific 2020 RootsTech presentation. I decided to go through each of Stacy’s five steps and blog about each step after I finished it.

The first step is to sort the contents of the box into five categories:

  1. Picture Stuff
  2. Written Stuff
  3. Document Stuff
  4. Memorabilia Stuff
  5. Dimensional Stuff

I had an unused Elfa rolling  file cart and I rolled it to my workspace. I used sticky notes to label the folders. Here’s how it looked right before I started sorting:

It took me only 30 minutes to sort the entire contents of the box. As I had expected, the box contained primarily photos. I was able to tell by the handwriting on the back of many of them that at least some of the contents of the box had come from my grandmother, Susie Jeffries Brown, after she passed away in 1999. It was so touching to handle these items and remember my grandmother. (Today is my grandmother’s birthday! She was born 24 Aug 1908.) Some of the photos were framed in paper folders or wood or metal frames and I created a second Picture Stuff folder to contain those.

In addition to photos, there were some newspaper articles, as well as some other written items, including my parents’ wedding vows. (Those went into Written Stuff folder.) There were a few books, including an illustrated edition of Aesop’s Fables that had been given to my grandfather, Crawford Brown (1906-1996) in 1914. It was a Christmas gift from his grandmother, Antoinette Garlock Brown (1855-1922).

There was also a collection of the embroidery pieces I created as a kid and gave to my grandmother. She had framed them and hung them on the wall of the apartment she shared with my grandfather in their retirement home. (How sweet is that?) That’s a photo of one of them at the top of the post. The Elfa file cart has two drawers on the bottom and I ended up using both of them to hold all the dimensional stuff.

I worked hard not to spend a lot of time on individual items. The goal was to simply sort them to make them accessible. And it felt great. I can’t wait to dig in to the individual pieces.

In the next step, I will take a closer look at each document and assess value and usefulness of each item, according to Stacy’s methodology, which is detailed in her post, How to BEGIN with the BOX, on StacyJulian.com. I’ll blog about step two as soon as I finish it!

Here’s my post on step two!

August 2021 mid-month check in!

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It’s almost half way through the month and since I ordinarily post on Tuesdays and Fridays, I thought I’d do the mid-month check in for the 30 x 30 challenge a little early.

How’s it going? For those of you participating in the challenge, have you been able to get in 30 minutes a day?

My challenge is going very well. Except for last Saturday, when I forgot (it was a particularly busy day), I have researched each day. It hasn’t been 30 minutes every day but I did have one session that was nearly three hours so I’ve averaged 38 minutes per session. Yesterday I got through the last document in my backlog of unprocessed files. I started out with 20 in my backlog and was whittling it down until Day 8 when I added 16 files. (Yikes!) So I’m glad to have it down to zero. Now I get to do some new research. This feels great.

In case you’re interested, here’s a screenshot of the Surnames Backlog spreadsheet I created a while back that helps me focus on getting rid of the backlog during a 30 x 30 challenge. I also add the amount of time I researched so I have a nice record. (You can click on the image to see a larger version.)

How about you? Please leave a comment and let everyone know how your 30 x 30 is going!