Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Paper vs electronic: What a difference two years makes!

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paperpilecroppedI just took another gander at a blog post I wrote on August 16, 2012, called How I organize my family history research. I still organize my research papers the same way I described in that post–my filing system has withstood the test of time.

But what really jumped out at me was this paragraph:

…I have to tell you that I’m a paper person. I know I could (and perhaps should) save documents, like census images, as pdfs and just organize them on my computer. But I really like printing them out and keeping them in files. So that’s what I do.

I’m pretty happy to report that times have changed. I’ve created an electronic file system that allows me to find  documents on my computer easily (though I’m still discovering files that haven’t been properly named or filed). So now I don’t feel the need to print everything and put them in files. It’s positively liberating.

That means my files are available wherever my laptop is. (Or my iPad, since much of my genealogy research is also stored in Dropbox.) I can do research from any room in the house, or any room in the world, for that matter.

Back in May, I extolled the virtues of going paperless. I am so happy that my need to print is vanishing!

Yes, my paper filing system is working well. But these days, I use it only for retrieving documents I filed there in the past. I’m just not adding to it. And that’s okay by me!

 

Readers weigh in on blog-reading tools

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Feedly is popular among genealogy blog readersEarlier this month, I solicited your suggestions for blog-reading tools. I was interested in hearing how you keep up with the various blogs you read. I was thrilled to receive about a dozen comments with suggestions. As promised, I’m compiling them here for easy reference.

Feedly was the blog reader of choice for five commenters. Two of those were Thomas MacEntee and Jana Last, whose blogs highlight other genealogy blogs, use Feedly. If Feedly is good enough for these blog power-readers, I think it’s probably good enough for me. I’ve just downloaded it and am going to give it a go. So far, set up has been intuitive and easy!

Here are the other suggestions (each of which were mentioned once), in case you want to try any of them:

Several people mentioned that they formerly used and like Google Reader. Alas, Google, in its infinite wisdom, discontinued that service last year.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to share information for this post!

Keeping up with blogs

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How do you manage your blog reading?There are so many great genealogy blogs out there. (I’m flattered that you’re reading this one when you have so many choices!) I am delighted to be part of the GeneaBloggers community, which points me to new and existing genealogy blogs, but I know I underutilize it.

Today I’m pondering how I might do a better job of (a) finding genealogy blogs to read; (b) remembering to read them and (c) finding the time to do so.

So I thought I’d turn to my readers. You guys are such a great source of information. Would you mind telling me how you organize your genealogy blog reading? Do you use RSS feeds and, if so, what platform do you use to read them?I’ve been thinking I could create a Flipboard of favorite blogs but I haven’t even explored it.

I think this is one of those situations where I’m overwhelmed by options and don’t know how to go about researching it without it turning into a huge time suck.

Any advice is much appreciated! I’ll do a follow-up post with the results of this little poll so we can all benefit. (I’d also love to hear what your five favorite genealogy blogs are!)

Thank you!!

Photo by Shardayyy via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

When life gets in the way of genealogy plans

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frowneyfaceI was so excited to go to the Midwestern Roots Family History and Genealogy conference this weekend. I’d heard from several blog readers who were going to be there and I’d arranged to meet some fellow genealogy bloggers. All that, plus the opportunity to soak in the knowledge of a two-day conference and a pre-conference workshop. That’s my idea of a great time.

But today I made the decision to cancel my plans to go. I have a long-time, beloved organizing client who has moved back to St. Louis and her belongings are arriving tomorrow, the day I was planning to leave for the conference. I’m committed to getting her moved in and settled as quickly as possible, so my team and I will be spending the rest of the week making that happen. I just wish the moving company had delivered her belongings sooner–they arrived in St. Louis over a week ago. But it can’t be helped.

I figured out a consolation prize, though. I’m going to devote Saturday and Sunday to genealogy education. I had purchased ten lectures worth of streaming content of the National Genealogical Society’s 2014 conference, and the opportunity to watch it is expiring in just a couple of weeks. So I’ll watch that and get a bit of the conference experience. I also plan to spend time reading some of the copious information I’ve gathered about preserving original family documents (the subject of the pre-conference workshop I was planning to attend). And I hope to spend some time with my  ancestor map and maybe do a little research on my Rasco line while I’m at it.

Committing to doing that work this weekend has made me feel better about having to miss the conference. I’m also buoyed by the prospect of the National Genealogical Society’s 2015 conference in St. Charles, Missouri, a mere 30 minutes from my house.

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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.