Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Local library, here I come!

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The St. Louis County Library headquarters

I was so pleased to see when I checked yesterday that the history and genealogy room of the St. Louis County Library is now open to the public without an appointment. The library had been closed during the pandemic and then open by appointment only, but somehow committing to a time slot was too big a hurdle for me.

Now I can walk in as usual and use the library. I am so excited. I have been keeping a list in Evernote of documents that I found on Family Search that can only be found at the Family History Library or one of its affiliates. And I have a couple of other Missouri-related facts I’m hoping to uncover that the library might be able to help me with.

Online research is wonderful and I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to do so much from home during and since the pandemic. But I’m itching to get out from behind my desk to do some research. Two years ago at this time, I was about to leave for my Kentucky research trip and I remember well the planning and anticipation as well as the great time I had on the trip.

Going to the library isn’t as exciting as a research trip to my ancestors’ towns, but I am eager to go to the St. Louis County library this afternoon. If you live elsewhere, you might check to see if your local library is now open for you to come and research!

If you’re curious about how I’ll process the documents I find at the library today, check out  How I Do It: A Professional Organizer’s Genealogy Workflow, a 37-page downloadable pdf published last month and available for $19.99.

Quick Tip #21: Ignore nothing

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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 often find myself glad that I’ve paid attention to a small detail!

Ignore nothing

I’ve been doing my share of newspaper research lately. (I treated myself to a six-month subscription to Publisher Extra on newspapers.com recently.) When I do a newspaper search on my relatives I often unearth tiny mentions of them that seem unimportant and not worth the time to download and process.

I’ve learned that these small mentions can be important additions my research and that I shouldn’t ignore them. Case in point: I downloaded an article from the Owensburg Owensboro (Kentucky) Messenger-Inquirer from 16 Jun 1903 that offered a single sentence about my great grandfather: “Mr. Elmer Adams’ horse ran off Sunday morning and tore his buggy all to pieces.” (It was part of a larger article full of single-sentence updates about residents of Sacramento, McLean, Kentucky including a mention of Elmer’s mother’s funeral.)

I’m so glad I downloaded it because later, when I was trying to figure out when Elmer moved his family from Kentucky to Oregon where my grandfather was born in 1904, this became a data point on my timeline. It helped me narrow down when he might have left Kentucky.

Now I remind myself to go ahead and take a few minutes to download each piece of information I find (in a newspaper or elsewhere), no matter how trivial it may seem at that moment. It just might come in handy later!

Genealogy Jamboree is virtual this year!

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The Southern California Genealogical Society Genealogy Jamboree starts this week! (I don’t know why I haven’t blogged about this year’s Jamboree, but I appreciate a comment from reader Rebecca Stanley mentioning it.) This is always such a robust conference and this year it’s even more so: There are two days for DNA topics and two days for the Genealogy Jamboree, which focuses on traditional genealogy. And it’s virtual this year, so you don’t have to travel to southern California to attend.

The Genetic Genealogy conference will be held June 4 & 5. The Genealogy Jamboree will be held June 11 & 12. Each conference consists of six live lectures that you can attend live or access the recording later. In addition, there will be 20 Genetic Genealogy and 50 Genealogy Jamboree recorded sessions. That’s a lot of learning opportunities Here’s the schedule for both conferences.

There are two levels of registration. If you purchase the Standard Registration for Genetic Genealogy ($190), you have access to 10 recordings. The Standard Registration for the Genealogy Jamboree ($175 for non-members) gives you access to 30 recordings. You can watch recordings until October 2021.

Alternatively, you can purchase the Plus Registration for each conference and have access to the live presentations plus all the recorded sessions for that conference. The Plus Registration for the Genetic Genealogy conference is $260 for non-members and gives you access to 20 recorded sessions. The Plus Registration for the Genealogy Jamboree is $275 for non-members and gives you access to 50 recorded sessions. You’ll get a $20 discount for registering for both conferences and SCGS members receive a $20 to $30 discount, depending on the package.

Again, you can access the entire schedule here.

And here’s an exciting addition: On Monday, June 7 and Wednesday, June 9 several live presentations are being offered free of charge in a program called JamboFree. (These sessions are not recorded.) You simply have to complete a free registration (or log in with your SCGS login) to get access.

There’s lots of information available on the website. This page is a good place to start if you’d like to learn more.

I attended the Jamboree in person back in 2015 and was really impressed by the professionalism of the whole event. I’m confident the virtual event will be equally well done!

 

Quick Tip #20: Write everything down

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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. This one saves time and frustration!

Write everything down

I learned a number of years ago that I can’t rely on my memory when it comes to genealogy. (Or a lot of things, for that matter.) I can keep a few ancestors’ names and birth and death dates in my head, but only a few. I used to think I would remember to pick up where I left off in a session or to pursue a clue (from a previous session or even the current one). But now I don’t take a chance, I write it down.

The key to success in taking these notes is having a place to put them so you know where to look. That could be a spiral bound notebook or a pad you keep by your keyboard. Or it could be a note in your genealogy software. Or it could be in follow-up notebooks in a platform like Evernote (that’s what I use). Or in your research log, in whatever form it takes

The takeaways here are twofold: (1) don’t rely on your memory and (2) have a consistent place where you put follow-up notes or lists of tasks. This small practice makes everything easier!

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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.