Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Got a brick wall?

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If you’re like every genealogist I know, you have at least one brick wall, a pesky ancestor for whom you haven’t been able to find more information. Actually, you probably have more than one. I know I do!

I’ve got good news for you! Genealogist extraordinaire Amy Johnson Crow is debuting a new eight-week individualized program called Beyond the Brick Wall. According to Amy’s website, “The Beyond the Brick Wall program is a combination of individualized coaching and genealogy education, based on Amy Johnson Crow’s proven WANDER research method. You will be putting into practice what you are learning, while having access to a professional genealogist to guide you through your research.” I think it sounds amazing. It’s limited to 20 participants, so you can get individual attention from Amy, who is so knowledgeable (and so nice)!

Registration opens today for the program, which starts September 20 and runs weekly through November 14. The program consists of a combination of pre-recorded presentations and interactive live sessions. The live sessions will begin at 7:00pm Eastern and last 60-90 minutes. The various components of the program are valued together at over $1500 and Amy is offering it all for $349.

Just go to her website to find loads of information and register for the program. If you sign up, please tell Amy I sent you!

Using Ancestry clues to find images at Family Search (screencast)

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Five years ago, I created a screencast of how I found my great aunt’s death certificate on family search after finding an FHL film number on Ancestry. While the user interfaces at Ancestry and Family Search may have changed a little in the last five years, I do think it’s useful information, so I decided to run that 2019 post again today.

Today I was doing some research on Ancestry. (I’ve finished my backlog project and have lifted my ban on searching–more on that in a future post.) I was looking for a death certificate for my grandmother’s sister whom I had just learned through Find A Grave had died at the age of six, in 1922.

A simple Birth/Marriage/Death records search produced a collection called Washington, Select Death Certificates, 1907-1960, but when I clicked on it, it said “No Image Text-only collection.” (A picture of that screen is at the top of this post.) I saw that there was a FHL film number, so I went to Family Search to try to track down the document.

I was successful in finding an image of the death certificate, though I had to jump through a few hoops. After I successfully downloaded and processed it, I decided to do a screencast of the process, in case it helps someone here.

Here’s the screencast:

A quick summary is that I searched on the film number in the catalog at Family Search, then when I got another No Image Available message there, I drilled down further to the actual microfilm number mentioned on Ancestry and did another search. That brought up the image. If it hadn’t, I would have gone to the image number (listed in the initial search result at Family Search) in that digitized microfilm. Bottom line: don’t give up if you’re told an image isn’t available!

You can find more information on using Family Search’s card catalog in this post from a year ago: Using the card catalog to find elusive documents on Family Search. And if you’re interested in how I processed that death certificate after I downloaded it, check out the blog post How I process a downloaded document. (For a deeper dive, check out my Orderly Roots guide, How I Do It: A Professional Organizer’s Genealogy Workflow.)

How I store my electronic files

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Computer monitor connected to laptop with one cord and wireless keyboard and mouseI first published this post in 2016 and it seemed to be helpful, so I thought I’d run it again. I’ve updated it a little to represent current practices, but very little has changed about my process in the last seven years!

I love organizing my family history research electronically. As I’ve mentioned here many times, I try not to print digital documents and instead store everything electronically where I can have easy access to it.

I don’t think I have been clear when I talk about storing my genealogy data electronically that I’m not talking about storing it as a family tree on Ancestry or Family Search. I’m talking about storing it on my hard drive.

To me, it would be folly to rely on an outside service to store my precious genealogy data. If the only copy of my information was at Ancestry, I would be required to renew my subscription to access my own data. Even storing all my information at a free site like Family Search feels risky to me. In addition to the fact that at Family Search there’s a single tree that anyone can change, it’s conceivable that they could change their terms of service to something unacceptable to me. Or start charging for access. Or simply vanish. Another place that some people store their genealogy documents is Evernote. I think that can be a great way to have easy, searchable access to information. But I wouldn’t store genealogy documents on Evernote that I don’t also have on my hard drive. They could go belly up. (It happened with Springpad.)

I enter all of my data into family-tree software that resides on my laptop’s hard drive. I use Reunion 13, a Mac program. It can sync with the iPhone and iPad using the ReunionTouch app. I like that storing my data on my computer, rather than an online service, is that the information is accessible even when I don’t have an internet connection (if I have my computer with me).

Of course, I back up my hard drive, both on an external hard drive via Time Machine and with an online backup service (Backblaze). Backing up is critical.

I’m not saying that my way is the right way or the best way. But I’ll share with you my process for storing info, in case you find it helpful or interesting. So far, it’s working well for me.

When I find a sourced piece of information pertinent to my research this is what I do:

  1. Add the information to the appropriate person(s) in Reunion (or add a person if need be).
  2. Cite the source in Reunion.
  3. Download the information (or scan it if I found it in paper form).
  4. Attach an image of the source document to the source citation in Reunion.
  5. File the digital document in that ancestor’s electronic folder on my hard drive, copying it if it applies to more than one ancestor.
  6. Scour the source for further information.
  7. Make a note in Evernote if it sparks potential further research.

So far this feels good to me and I haven’t second guessed it.

How do you store your family tree information?

If you’d like a deep dive on how I organize my genealogy research, check out my Orderly Roots Guide, How I Do It: A Professional Organizers Genealogy Workflow.

My research-friendly computer setup

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Computer monitor connected to laptop with one cord and wireless keyboard and mouseLike many people, I do most of my genealogy research online, from my desk. I have a laptop computer (a 14″ MacBook Pro). I love my laptop for its portability. I take it with me on research trips (or, really, any trip).

But I don’t love doing genealogy research on a 14″ screen and I don’t love using a trackpad instead of a mouse.

I bought my HP Business Z27 2TB68A8 27″ monitor way back in 2019 and it’s been great. (I should point out that there’s a more modern version of a similar monitor, the HP U28 4K HDR, that is less expensive and has more conveniently paced ports than mine. I’ve done no research on it, though.) What I love about this monitor is that it acts as a hub and a power source. I plug it into my computer with a USB-C cable and then I plug my external hard drive and webcam into the monitor. So I just have one cord going from my monitor to my computer. That makes it very easy to unplug and go. And it cuts down on cord clutter on my desk.

I also use a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse. I recently developed tennis elbow from overuse of the keyboard and mouse, so I’m now using an ergonomic vertical mouse, which I think is helpful. I also prop the forward edge of my keyboard on a wrist rest so that it tilts downward, which helps my tennis elbow.

The joy of this setup is that I can have multiple documents open on my screen. I can also use my laptop screen, which I keep to the side and stash documents on. (In case you’re curious, my laptop wallpaper is the vision board I created for 2023.) If I were trying to do all my genealogy research and processing of downloaded documents on my laptop I am confident I would find it less enjoyable.

If you struggle with having as many documents visible as you’d like on your screen, you might consider a large monitor that you can use when you’re researching at home. Add a wireless keyboard and mouse and you get the best of both worlds of a desktop computer and laptop.

Join the mailing list!

When you first join the list, I’ll send you a few emails to help you organize your family history. After that you’ll hear from me at the end of every month when I send an email with links to that month’s posts. And every now and then, I’ll let you know when I have something special to promote.