Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Census Predictor: What a terrific idea!

By 3 Comments

Just three more years until the 1950 census is released to the public! I bet you’re as excited about it as I am. But do you know where your family members lived in 1950? In the mid-twentieth century, people started moving around more, rather than living around extended family for decades on end. I suspect that will make census research a little more difficult for genealogists. (Here’s an article from the Oxford Encyclpedia of American Social History on 20th-century internal migration, if you’re interested.)

OYFH reader Christy Underwood, who writes the blog Shaking My Family Tree, gave thought to how future genealogists might find her and her family in the more recent censuses. She created a Census Predictor form, which she has filled out for her family members who were alive since 1950. She’s posting them on her blog as a roadmap for researchers who follow her.

She explains the concept here, but the idea is that she creates a table in Word for each family member, with rows for each census year, providing the state, county, city and address of the person at the time. She also includes a cell for notes.

Here’s Christy’s post with her Census Predictor for herself. (That’s a snippet at the top of this post.)

I think this is genius. Wouldn’t it be great if we all did it? I’m planning to give it a try as soon as I finish my current paper-purging project (which is coming along quite nicely).

Are you game for creating census predictors for your family? Are you already doing something similar? I’d love to hear about it!

Christy, thank you for inventing the Census Predictor and sharing it with the world on your blog. And thank you for giving me the green light to write about it here!

Appreciating my digital lifestyle

By 11 Comments

For the past week, as I promised I would in this blog post, I’ve been going through a largish stash of genealogy-related paper that I found when I went in search of some tax documents. I vowed not to continue my online research (where I print nothing and don’t have to process paper) until this paper backlog was gone.

I’ve spent 30 minutes a day reducing the paper pile ever since. I’ve recycled a lot and I’ve scanned some documents. (I’m proud of myself that I scanned on the spot, rather than creating a “to scan” pile to deal with later.) It’s starting to get kind of tedious, but I’m really thrilled with my progress.

But here’s the thing that really hit me these last couple of days. Dealing with paper genealogy records puts a real strain on my eyes. I had sent away to the Alabama Archives for the Confederate pension records of my second great grandfather, Laban Taylor Rasco (1844-1926). They had kindly sent a whole bunch of paper, most of it downloaded from Ancestry. I think when I received it, I was overwhelmed and probably daunted by the fact that much of it was comprised of black-and-white prints of documents that were on yellowed paper at the time they were digitized. Very hard to read. That’s why the papers landed in the pile.

I’ve spent the last couple of days with these Alabama pension records, looking to see which of them I already have on my hard drive and then going to Ancestry to download better copies of the documents I didn’t already have digitally. (And I’m downloading a bunch of new-to-me pension documents from that collection at Ancestry while I’m at it.) In order to compare what I have (or what I find) with the paper version, I have to squint, dust off my magnifying glass, or move the paper to better light in order to read it. My eyes aren’t getting any better with age and this not my idea of fun.

Once the documents are on my hard drive, I can simply zoom in on them to read them. So easy. So painless. And a huge reason I favor digital over paper.

This little project has shown several benefits already: A reduction in paper hanging around my house (yay!) and an appreciation for the decision I made several years ago to eschew paper. I’m so glad I’m doing it!

If any of you who are joining me on this quest have enjoyed some benefits, please share in the comments!

Going to RootsTech? Here’s your survival guide

By 5 Comments

RootsTech 2019–the giant genealogy conference in Salt Lake City sponsored by Family Search–is just around the corner, February 27 to March 2. Alas, I’m not attending this year. I’ve decided to spend those dollars on a research trip instead.

I’ve attended four RootsTech conferences (2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018) and even spoke at the 2017 conference. I really enjoy RootsTech because of the great keynote speeches and classes and the opportunity to learn about new services and products in the Expo. I also like meeting up with blog readers and doing research at the Family History Library while I’m in Salt Lake.

So, yes, I really like RootsTech, but I admit that it is exhausting. Last year there were some 17,000 attendees and there were some really long lines. I’m not much for crowds, so I have to be sure and schedule down time during the conference.

The folks who organize RootsTech have created a Survival Guide to RootsTech 2019. If you’re going, I encourage you to check it out. Here are a few things you can do now to make the conference easier once you’re there:

  • Download the RootsTech app (or update it if it’s already on your phone from a previous year)
  • Select the classes you think you’ll want to take
  • Watch the Road to RootsTech video series, which shows behind-the-scenes peek at the planning for the event. I admire their transparency. In episode 1 they addressed the complaints about lines at the 2018 conference and how they’re addressing that problem in 2019. (No more badge scanning!)

I’m sure I’ll have serious FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) this year as I look at social media during the conference, but some of the conference will be available to those of us who aren’t there.

  • Free Live Stream. Each day of the conference five or six sessions will be streamed live, free of charge.  You can view the Streaming Schedule in advance and then on the day just go to rootstech.org to watch.
  • This year, they’re offering a Virtual Pass for $129 that gives you access to 18 classes for a full year after the conference, starting 10-15 days after it ends. (If you’re attending RootsTech in person, you can buy the Virtual Pass as an add on to your conference registration for $79.)

If you’re going, I hope you have an amazing time. It sounds like the organizers are working hard to make the conference less overwhelming and less exhausting, which is fantastic.

I’m sorry I won’t get a chance to meet any readers of this blog at RootsTech, but I will be attending the NGS conference May 8 to 11 in St. Charles, Missouri. So perhaps we can meet there!

Taking a brief detour from digital to paper

By 17 Comments

Earlier this week I couldn’t put my hands on a tax document I needed. (It’s nice to know that professional organizers have these problems too, right?) I tore apart my office looking for it (not a pretty sight). And in doing so I discovered a whole bunch of unfiled papers related to genealogy. What? I’m supposed to be all about digital genealogy. Where’d all this paper come from?

I put all the papers together in a container. (That’s a picture of it at the top of this post.) They appear to be categorized in some way. At least I think they are, because they’re in five separate plastic file sleeves, plus a few loose papers.

I also gathered together all my unread genealogy publications. I have a backlog of issues of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, NGS Magazine and the Missouri State Genealogical Association Journal. I have a bad habit of putting these publications aside when they arrive in the mail. But I know that at the very least reading case studies can be useful, so I’d like to dig into them.

I have no idea what treasures or clues might be hiding among all that paper. So I’ve decided to focus on the paper until it’s gone. Starting today. Here’s my plan:

  • Review the loose paper first, spending 30 minutes a day processing it until it’s gone. That might mean discarding or scanning and processing like I do other documents I find online. Or it might mean simply reading and taking notes (in Evernote). Or it might be a simple case of not needing the paper any more. (I’m hoping for some no-brainer recycling in there.) In any case, my intention is to discard the paper after it’s digested. I’ll feel successful when all the paper is gone.
  • Once the papers have been dealt with. I’ll turn my attention to the journals. Again, I’ll spend 30 minutes a day. I imagine I’ll take notes in Evernote. And I won’t be too surprised if I end up keeping the publications on a bookshelf (but we’ll see).

Does anyone want to join me on dealing with a paper backlog in February?