Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Can’t come to RootsTech? Watch from home via a virtual pass

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Attending RootsTech isn’t possible for everyone, of course. (Though it’s so large sometimes it feels like everyone and his brother is there.) If you can’t attend in person you can purchase a virtual pass that allows you to watch a pre-selected group of 30 classes from the comfort of your home. The cost is $129 for the virtual pass alone or $79 if purchased as an add-on to an in-person registration. You have a year to view the recordings.

To see the line up of classes being offered in the virtual pass (it looks to me like a great lineup), check out the Virtual Pass page on the RootsTech website. You can also purchase your virtual pass on that page.

In the past some classes have been live streamed and that might well be the case this year. You can view past live streamed sessions now on the RootsTech Video Archive page.

I’m excited for RootsTech this year and am looking forward to presenting “The Imperfect Genealogist” there. If you haven’t already, please let me know in the comments if you’ll be attending. And if you’re going and haven’t downloaded the app yet, it is available!

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.

Watch me discuss genealogy on Hoardganize podcast

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A couple of weeks ago I recorded a video podcast episode for Hoardganize, an organizing podcast hosted by Rachel Seavey of Collector Care. We focused on genealogy: getting started, as well as organizing results. I’m accustomed to audio podcasts, so I find it fairly tortuous to watch myself talk. I’m hopeful that it’s less tortuous for you. That aside, I think we had a great discussion and there’s some good info in there.

You can watch the video on YouTube or, if you prefer, listen to it on the Hoardganize website.

Here are some highlights:

  • Where to start: start with yourself and work up your tree (1:30)
  • Gather the basic info: birth, marriage, death, censuses
  • Track info in an Ancestry.com tree or download info and build a family tree using separate software
  • Research direct lines (9:00)
  • Move to collateral lines
  • Using Family Search (10:25)
  • Using libraries (15:06)
  • U.S. research versus other countries (16:11)
  • Organizing your documents (17:54)
  • My file naming protocol
  • Keeping track of what you’re doing now and what you want to research in the future

I hope you find it helpful. If you do, please feel free to share!

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!