Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

How They Do It: Julie Goucher

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I’m so glad to bring you another post in my How They Do It series! This month’s interview is with Julie Goucher, a UK genealogist and one-name study expert who was recommended by a reader. Julie is a well-respected writer and speaker on genealogy and is the Pharos Tutor for three One-Name Studies/Surname studies courses. She is a Trustee for the Guild of One-Name Studies and has two One-Name Studies for the surnames Orlando and Butcher, which represent her parents. Julie writes for several genealogy magazines, including Family Tree Magazine (UK) and Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine. Most recently she wrote a Surname Research Guide for the Guild of One-Name Studies, a new course for Pharos on the practicalities for One-Name Studies and is currently writing a book called Last One Standing which should publish later this year. You can keep up to date with Julie at https://anglersrest.net.

How They Do It: Julie Goucher

How long have you been doing genealogy?

Since 1988, so about 32 years. Where did that time go?

What’s your favorite thing about being a genealogist?

The thrill of the chase of information plus the journey our research takes us on. Not to mention the friendships we make along the way as we research and connect with others.

What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to organizing your genealogy?

Keeping on track with the research and filing documents and items away when I am researching. I do though consistently keep notes.

What is your favorite technology tool for genealogy?

I think this has to be the availability of the internet, which shrinks the world to the size of a matchbox and a smart phone.

If you were starting out new as a genealogist what would you do differently?

Spend more time with family members, asking questions. Even though I did that, there is still many I wish I had asked. The other thing I would do differently is to research and “deal” with that research immediately so there was no paper backlog.

Do you keep a research log? If so, what format?

Yes, I do. I am a prolific note taker, so have research logs since I began researching, though those early ones are sketchy in places. I have used a written log and an electronic log, which I kept as a spreadsheet. My favourite way is via pen and paper. I use a notebook and use it confirm what I have researched and what I have found (or not found). I build a to do list at the same time.

How do you keep track of clues or ideas for further research?

Trusty notebook and pen. On occasion I use my notes area of my iPhone, but these are migrated to my notebook as soon as I can. I use the same for blog posts, articles and presentation ideas too. I also date everything. Notebooks of choice are Leuchttrum1917 for notetaking and journaling. I use a Traveller’s notebook system for a catch all when I am on the move. I recently have moved into a A5 Filofax for organising and planning blog posts, especially useful if I am working on a series.

How do you go about sharing your personal research with cousins or other interested parties?

Blog and newsletter and website. I do have online trees, but they are not my preferred method.

What’s the most important thing you do to prepare for a research trip?

Consider the aims of the trip. What specifics I want to locate, and I always do background reading. The most important thing I can share is to note down or photograph, if you can, all the records you see. Just in case surnames that originate in one area have moved to another. Our people were more migratory that we really think. If I am not sure if it is the same family, I note it down, and assess later as opposed to discounting it during the trip. Also, date everything.

What’s your biggest piece of advice to genealogists in terms of organizing their research?

Keep it simple! Use the right tools for the job and take the time to learn how to use a piece of software. Make use of genealogical programmes for studies that do not involve just your family lines, such as a surname study or place research. Spreadsheets are good, but they are not meant for storing or creating family trees.

Do you have a dedicated space in your home for doing genealogy research? What’s it like?

Yes, I have an office at home. It has too many books, or perhaps too few bookcases! Two filing cabinets, an armchair, desk and shredder. I also have a stand with my printer (and several piles of filing) and a seat which houses a lot of genealogical data CDs. The tops of my filing cabinet house boxes of photos.

Do you have anything to add?

Genealogy gives me a great deal of pleasure, as do the friendships I have made along the way. The documentation that archives hold is so very important as that adds evidences to our family tree. Not everything is online, and the other important factor is citing the source. Even if you only cite where the material was found and not much else, it is better than nothing. The point of a citation is that you and others can follow the research pathway using the citations you provide.

I’m so grateful to Julie for taking the time to answer these questions. I found myself nodding as I read her responses, particularly the bits about processing documents as you find them and making decisions about whether something is relevant after you get home from a research trip, not during. And, of course, the advice about citing sources–even if it’s an imperfect citation–is so on point. Thank you, Julie!

30 x 30 challenge wrap up

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It’s January 30, the last day of this month’s 30 x 30 challenge. I’m curious: How did it go? Did you find that the challenge being in January helped a little? I think it helped me because I wanted to start the year off right.

Were you able to meet your goal? Even if you weren’t, did the challenge help you do more than you would have done without the challenge?

I had a great first 3/4 of the month. As I mentioned in the mid-month check in, I manged to research every day the first half of the month, even if I wasn’t able to put in a full 30 minutes. But I hit a snag with a trip I took on January 22. I was gone for five days and I was able to research only two of them. And then once I got home, I had to deal with a family health crisis (my brother in Walla Walla is very ill) which necessitated a last-minute trip there, so genealogy is completely off my radar.

But I feel very good about the work I was able to do and once life returns to normal I hope to hop back in. I’ll be going to Salt Lake City at the end of February for RootsTech and I hope to spend some time at the Family History Library, so that will be a big boost!

Please let me know in the comments how your challenge went!

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!

For detailed information on how I organize my own genealogy research (including my research log), check out my Orderly Roots Guide, How I Do It: A Professional Organizer’s Genealogy Workflow, available for $19.99.