Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

You CAN organize your family history

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I just re-read an empowering post that I originally ran here on February 19, 2021. I’ve slightly edited it and am running it again, because I think it’s a powerful message. I hope you think so too.

I’m a big fan of the Yoga with Adriene YouTube channel. I’ve been doing at-home yoga via free videos hosted by Adriene Mishler for just over two years. My practice is a little more spotty these days, but during the pandemic I didn’t miss a day for more than a year.

Why am I mentioning this on my genealogy blog? The video I did on February 19, 2021 was called Yoga for Self Doubt. It was a lovely practice with an encouraging and empowering message. I love Adriene so much, I often ask myself how I can be more like her. I walked off the yoga mat with the intention of being more empowering for my clients and the people who read my blogs. So I decided to simply express encouragement and empowerment on the blog in this post.

If you came to this website because you were confused or overwhelmed about how to organize your genealogy research, I’m here to tell you that as challenging as it might feel, you can do it. It it feels confusing, just get started and the confusion may clear up for you.

Try to let go of any fear that you’ll do it wrong. First of all, there isn’t a right way to organize your genealogy; there’s just the way that works for you. Secondly if you start on a path that doesn’t work for you, you can always tweak it.

Sometimes it can be helpful to do a do-over. Purchase some software, and start entering in your family tree, including only verified facts and citing your sources to back up those facts. That’s what I did when I abandoned my over 100 pages of hand-written (unsourced) five-generation pedigree charts about ten years ago. I take great comfort in knowing I have a solid tree (and I’m improving my source citations and gleaning more information as I work on my source documentation project).

If genealogy ever gets you down, please don’t beat yourself up. Remember you’re fully capable of getting back on course. Take a class. Sign up for the Rootstech virtual (or in-person) conference so you can have access to hundreds of free educational sessions. Keep reading genealogy blogs. Join my mailing list. Use social media to get advice or find cousins who can help.

If you have specific organizing questions related to genealogy, feel free to reach out to me via email and I’ll see if I can help. And if you have suggestions for topics I could cover on the blog, let me know.

Genealogy is an amazing hobby, but I know from experience it’s easy to feel bogged down or overwhelmed. Please don’t feel discouraged. You got this!

Quick Tip #43: Verify family stories

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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 now and then on a small topic that pops into my head. This one will help you create reliable research.

Verify family stories

We all have family stories that have always been taken as the truth. But when you put on our genealogist, you really need to verify those stories. As when playing the Telephone Game, stories have a way of changing upon repetition. If you want a family tree you can trust and share, use those stories as a basis for research questions and treat them as clues, not fact. I think there’s no bigger thrill than to get to the bottom of a family story and establish it (or a version of it) as fact! Then be sure to cite your sources, so others know that the facts are verified.

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

In praise of the family fan chart

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Ancestry has added a fan chart as a way to view your pedigree and navigate to direct-line ancestors in your tree. It’s in Beta now and when I checked it out, I really liked what I saw.

In my opinion, the fan chart is so much cleaner and less cluttered than the pedigree charts (horizontal or vertical) offered by Ancestry. (It doesn’t offer green leaves or Thrulines alerts however.) I can click on any ancestor in the chart and be taken to that ancestor’s Ancestry profile.

As an illustration, I’ll share my family chart on Ancestry, from me through my second great grandparents.

Here’s the fan chart:

And here’s the vertical pedigree chart, which had been my preference.

I love how fan charts provide an attractive and easy-to-understand progress of generations. The family-tree software I use on my Mac, Reunion, offers a fan chart too, but it’s not clickable like the Ancestry chart. Here’s what my Reunion fan chart looks like:

I’d be willing to bet that your family-tree software offers a fan chart. In my opinion, it’s worth looking for!

It just occurred to me to see whether Family Search has a fan-chart view and it does! I simply logged in and clicked Tree and there it was. Each ancestor is clickable and you can put a person in the middle of the fan chart by hovering over their section and clicking the fan icon. (I have not connected my husband on the Family Search family tree and rather than ignore that, it looks like Family Search included a blank grid for my husband and our non-existent children.)

Here’s what my Family Search fan chart looks like.

This is getting repetitive, so I’ll stop. I just wanted to take a moment to express my appreciation for fan charts!

Early Bird registration for RootsTech 2024 is open!

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Next year’s RootsTech will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 29 to March 2, 2024. As in the past few years, the conference is also being offered virtually.

That’s five months away, but registration has just opened for both versions of the conference.

As in the past, the virtual conference is free, but you do have to register. Why not register now? Then it will be on your calendar and you can plan around it.

If you’re up for traveling to Salt Lake City, registration is also open for the in-person conference. And right now it’s at an early-bird rate: $99 for a three-day pass and $69 for a one day pass. (I’m not sure what the rate will be going up to.) I’m always amazed and impressed at how inexpensive genealogy conferences tend to be. My professional organization charges $750 to register for its three-day conference!

Why pay $99 plus travel when you can watch from the comfort of your home? I can think of a half dozen reasons off the top of my head:

  • 250+ sessions are offered only in Salt Lake City (though there are 200+ new online sessions).
  • The Expo Hall allows you to learn about genealogy products and services and meet those offering them.
  • You get to really focus on genealogy, rather than trying to wedge it into your day (watching at home is very distracting).
  • You have the opportunity to make friends with other genealogists.
  • You can go to the Family History Library and do your own research!

If you have the budget for it, I encourage you to give attending in person some serious consideration. I attended in 2014, 2016, 2017 (I was a speaker!), 2018, and 2020. (I was a speaker again in 2020…about two weeks later the world shut down). I obviously love this conference, since I keep going back. I’m not planning to go next year, because my priorities have shifted. But I’m sure it will be a terrific conference.