Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Quick Tip #40: Always look for the document image

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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 is important for new genealogists to understand.

Always look for the document image

When we’re searching online, it can be exciting to find a record that verifies information or gives you new information. But here’s something to keep in mind: If that record is an index, have you more work to do. You want to try to find the original document that was indexed, if at all possible. That document will probably give you more information than was provided in the index. And by looking at the original document, you’re increasing the chance that the information is accurate. Indexes are great to find, but the original documents are even better.

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

Creating a virtual RootsTech playlist

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It’s that time of year again! The RootsTech conference will be held March 2 to 4, 2023. This year, they’re offering the conference both in-person and virtually. I made the decision not to attend in person, but I did register for the virtual conference and spent a little bit of time this morning putting some sessions onto my playlist. (It’s not too late to register for either option!)

I’m easily overwhelmed by choices and I found the choices of sessions to watch over the last two virtual conferences a little overwhelming. In case you’re the same way, I thought I’d share how I went about creating a playlist for me to watch next week or beyond. (I’m assuming, though I don’t know for sure, that the main stage sessions will be recorded for future watching.)

  1. First, I registered for the conference. (I did that back in January.)
  2. Then I logged into the Rootstech website by clicking on Sign In in the top menu bar.
  3. I clicked RootsTech 2023 in the top menu bar, then Calendar (in the Virtual section). I went through both the Main Stage and Sessions listings, clicking the Add to Playlist button for those sessions I didn’t want to miss.
  4. Then I clicked On Demand in the top menu bar, then Browse the Library. I was pleased to see 2023 sessions listed, though I won’t be able to watch them until the conference starts. I added to my playlist the sessions that caught my fancy.
  5. I didn’t want to have to browse all the offerings, so I clicked on Search the Full Library. Then I put the Filters to work for me. I selected English and 2023 (that narrowed it to 228 classes) and then I used the Search function. I searched for Organizing and got a very manageable 13 results. I selected some of those to add to my playlist.

In less than ten minutes, I added 22 sessions to my playlist. And I noticed that my playlists from 2021 and 2022 are still available!

There are so many learning opportunities at RootsTech. I’m sad not to be attending in person but I am very grateful that RootsTech makes it so easy (and inexpensive–it’s free!) to participate from home.

 

Four genealogy habits to create now

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I’m a huge fan of creating beneficial habits. When you have a habit going, it becomes automatic–at least for awhile! And when that happens, life gets easier. (You might enjoy listening to Episode 22 of the podcast I co-host, Getting to Good Enough, called Creating Helpful Habits.)

I got to thinking about the genealogy habits that benefit me and four jumped to mind. Your future self will thank you if you do these four things every time you research:

  1. Rename the files you download. Having a consistent file-naming protocol will help make sure you don’t lose valuable documents on your hard drive. (See this blog post if you’re interested in my file-naming protocol and folder structure.)
  2. Process each document right after you download it. By process, I mean extract all the data from it and enter it in your genealogy software. Be sure to create a source citation (see #3 below). If you do this, you won’t have an ever-present backlog of unprocessed documents nagging at you. And you get to further your research!
  3. Create a source citation for every document and assign a source to every fact. In my genealogy life no fact goes into my database (I use Reunion) without a source citation. That’s how I know I can trust my research. (And so can other people.)
  4. Log your research during each session or, at the very least, write out your next steps. It is so useful to be able to pull up your research log and see where you left off. It eliminates that overwhelming question, “What should I research today?” (Here’s a post on my very informal research log.)

The good news is that while these habits are important, they’re not hard. I encourage you to work on creating great genealogy habits. It can take some of the frustration out of the research process. You want your genealogy research to be as frustration-free as possible!

For detailed information on how I organize my own genealogy research, check out my Orderly Roots Guide, How I Do It: A Professional Organizer’s Genealogy Workflow, available for $19.99.

Two-part program on Zotero for genealogy starts tomorrow

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Reader Donna Cox Baker is an enthusiastic advocate for using the tool Zotero to organize genealogy research. She wrote a guest post about it for this blog and also described it in her How I Do It interview from 2018.

So I was interested when I received an email yesterday from about a two-part program that Donna is teaching for the Bucks County (Pennsylvania) Genealogy Society (BCGS) called “Zotero for Genealogy: Harnessing the Power of Your Research.” The first part is tomorrow, February 4, from 10 am to 12 pm eastern. The second part will be on March 4. Donna says, “Part I will be about the essential core of Zotero and why genealogists need it. Part II will be about various creative ways I’ve expanded on the Zotero basics to make it a real powerhouse tool–such things as timelines, map legends, ticklers, research planning, thought mapping, and more.”

I still haven’t explored Zotero, so I’m interested in watching her programs. The fee is $10 per workshop for non-members of BCGS and $5 for members. The presentations are being recorded and will be available, to members only, for 30 days. I’m not able to attend live tomorrow, so I elected to join the Bucks County Genealogical Society for only $20 and then I’ll have $5 access to the two workshops (and any future workshops in 2023.) It’s worth it to me to pay an extra $10 for access to the recordings for 30 days.

If you’re interested too, go to this page on the BCGS website to learn about the program and this page to register as a non-member. If you’d rather join first, you can read about membership benefits or skip right to the online membership application form. It’s worth noting that when I joined this morning, I did not instantly gain access to registering for the program at the members’ rate. (I’m waiting for a welcome email with a login.) So if you’re planning to go this route, you might want to join today rather than waiting for tomorrow.

Join the mailing list!

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.