Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Find genealogy success with Genealogy Intensive from Thomas MacEntee

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One of the things I struggle with in my genealogy research is finding the time to do the research, staying focused, and avoiding overwhelm. Internet communities and research trips can provide camaraderie and support but, for the most part, genealogy research is a pretty solitary endeavor.

That’s why I was really excited to receive an email yesterday from Thomas MacEntee of Hack Genealogy and GeneaBloggers announcing his new Genealogy Intensive™ online workshops. (Maybe you received it too.)

The six-week workshop is limited to 13 participants, all focused on a common goal. (Each individual workshop has a theme.) The participants provide support, feedback and accountability to one another and are led by an expert coach. There are assignments and weekly online meetings. The first Genealogy Intensive, called The Write Stuff will be led by Lisa Alzo and is for people who are interested in building their their family history writing skills. It starts October 13. The price for the Genealogy Intensive is just $129 (right now it’s discounted to $99), which seems like a huge bargain to me.

I know from experience that this type of camaraderie, accountability, guidance and focus can reap huge benefits. I’ve taken similar courses in different contexts. In fact, I started this blog as a result of a similar workshop in 2012 called Why Not Now? that spurred me to figure out the technology side of setting up the blog, something I’d been wanting to do for ages. After the two-week-long Why Not Now? workshop in April 2012, the blog was well on its way. It went live in June 2012 and has been going strong ever since.

The other reason I’m so excited by Genealogy Intensive concept is that I’m a big fan of Thomas MacEntee. I listened to him raptly for four hours as he lectured at the Genealogy Society of Southern Illinois’ one-day conference  in August and I love his website GeneaBloggers. I’m very grateful for the support he provides to genealogy blogger and for his generosity in sharing his knowledge about genealogy.

If you’re interested in putting your family history into writing and feel you could use some instruction and encouragement, I urge you to sign up! I won’t be signing up for this particular intensive (I’m a professional writer), but I eagerly await the schedule of 2015 Intensives that Thomas tells me will be coming out in the next few weeks.

Have you registered for RootsTech?

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RootsTech 2015 registration is openAbout ten days ago, I registered for RootsTech 2015, which will be held February 11 to 15 in Salt Lake City. I attended last year and really enjoyed it. I jumped at the chance to register again for only $139, the early registration fee. (I’m accustomed to organizers’ conferences that cost about $500 to register.)

When they announced last year that RootsTech 2015 would be held in conjunction with the Federation of Genealogical Societies’ (FGS) annual conference, my first thought was, 10,000 people isn’t enough? Here’s the thing: RootsTech 2014 was so well organized (and, believe me, I don’t say that lightly) that I have no worries that combining the conference with FGS will have a negative impact on the conference experience. In fact, I’m pretty sure it will have a positive impact.

The two conferences are being held concurrently. There will be shared general sessions and a shared Expo. Those who register for one conference will have the option of going to the other conference’s breakout sessions (that option is available for a small additional registration fee). I didn’t know whether I would want to attend any FGS sessions, but for an additional $39, I figured it was worth it to keep that option open.

So I have my plane ticket, my hotel reservation, and my conference registration. It’s on my calendar and I am really looking forward to it.

Are you going? If so, please let me know! Last year, I met up with OYFH reader Lori Krause and we’ve had a great time staying in touch ever since! (Hope you’re going again, Lori!)

Want to meet up at the Midwestern Roots conference?

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Midwestern Roots 2014 conferenceI can’t believe it’s almost August already. Next week I travel to Indianapolis for the Midwestern Roots Family History and Genealogy conference. I’m very excited. I love conferences in general and I’ve really enjoyed the genealogy conferences I’ve attended so far. RootsTech 2014 was especially valuable for me.

Before I went to RootsTech in February, I posted here and was so happy to hear from a reader, Lori Krause, who was attending. She’s a fellow Missourian (though she lives on the other side of the state) and we spent a lot of time together at the conference and have also visited the Midwest Genealogy Center together subsequently.

So I thought I’d see if anyone is going to the Indiana conference. If so, maybe we can get together for coffee or sit together at a session. (I promise not to pressure you to become my BFF.) Just leave a comment and I’ll contact you via email or just email me through the Contact form.

I’m heading up early for the pre-conference session on preserving original family documents on Thursday morning.

I’m very excited about this learning opportunity. And I hope to multiply the benefit by meeting one or more readers of this blog!

Giving Evernote another try

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Evernote logoI know that people rave about Evernote, for genealogy and for other aspects of life. Over the years, I keep dipping my toe and withdrawing it quickly. The user interface has just never clicked for me.

I blogged back in February of 2013 that I was exploring Evernote for genealogy. That didn’t really pan out, but late in 2013 I started using Springpad, which has a more graphical interface than Evernote. Thanks to Springpad, I became hooked on cloud-based, synching organizing and storage systems. After Springpad announced it was shutting down this month, I exported my data, including my family history research logs, to Evernote.

So now I’m ready to give it another try. I’m trying to be open minded about Evernote’s interface. I bought and read the e-book Evernote Essentials by Brett Kelly, and I’m going to be checking out genealogy-specific information about Evernote. (This morning, I found this great page on Cyndi’s List with genealogy templates for Evernote.)

I’ll keep you posted, but in the meantime I’m wondering whether any of you have either great tips using Evernote in genealogy or  recommendations of more resources to help me learn to use and love Evernote. If so, I’m all ears!