Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Join us for Declutter Happy Hour!

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This isn’t strictly genealogy-related (though it could be). I wanted to let you all know about a fun opportunity to learn live from me and my podcast co-host, life coach Shannon Wilkinson. We will be presenting Declutter Happy Hour, a four-part class that will be held February 3, 10, 17, and 24 from 6 to 7:30 pm central time.

Shannon and I created Declutter Happy Hour way back in 2009.  It started as a teleclass then morphed into an ecourse before we retired it. It ended up being a precursor to our podcast.

We were thrilled to be invited by our friends at Fly Paper to bring Declutter Happy Hour back to life, this time via Zoom!

Declutter Happy Hour is a live experience where you actually get some decluttering done. I think it’s really special because it infuses the decluttering process with a secret ingredient: mindset change (plus fun and laughter).

Each of the four sessions starts with a discussion led by Shannon and me about an important aspect of the decluttering process and the mindset shift that goes with it.

Then, during the class, you get time to work on a decluttering project. It could be something to do with your decluttering your genealogy research. Or you may want to tackle your linen closet (or any other space in your home). Whatever you decide to work on, Shannon and I will stay in the Zoom room, ready and waiting to answer any questions and provide support and encouragement.

By the end of a month of Declutter Happy Hours you’ll have let go of more than just stuff and you’ll have the tools to take on decluttering projects on your own.

Again, Declutter Happy Hour runs on Wednesdays in February at 6 pm central time. You can register at eventbrite. Please don’t delay! Space is limited so we can make sure your questions get answered.

I’d love to see you there!

A small enhancement to my genealogy map

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A small enhancement to my ancestor mapAs I’ve blogged here before, I have an ancestor map hanging on the wall with pins in it for the birth and death/burial places for my direct-line ancestors, up to my third great grandparents. I enjoy looking at it and I love how it makes migration more visible.

I initially started with a map that I pinned over a bulletin board I already had. But that board was bowed. So I put the map onto a thin sheet of cork on top of a piece of foam core, and placed the whole little parfait into a DIY frame. But over time the edges of the map kept pulling out of the frame, so I ended up buying an identical framed map and repinning everything. (So my advice to you if you’re interested in starting a similar project is to cut straight to the pre-framed map.)

The other day I made one tiny enhancement that I wanted to share. The map came with short pushpins with colored heads. On the map, I use longer pins, also with colored heads, so that I can add flags to them indicating the person the pin represents. I took the short pushpins and put them in the areas that I have personally visited for my genealogy research. Primarily that’s cemeteries, though I have spent some time at repositories in Kentucky. Click on the link above to see a larger version of the photos where those shorter pins are more visible.

I was pleased to see that I was able to add four pushpins representing visits to Kentucky, Nebraska, Alabama and western Missouri. I’ve visited graves of ancestors in all four of my lines (Adams, Brown, Rasco and Jeffries). I hadn’t really realized that before this exercise and that makes me feel happy.

The next time I travel to a new place for research, I’ll be delighted to add a pin to the map!

Check out Stacy Julian’s How to BEGIN with the Box

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Back in April, I wrote an enthusiastic blog post about my favorite RootsTech 2020 presentation, Do Something with That Box from Stacy Julian. She kindly gave me permission to reprint her helpful handout because she hadn’t written about it on her own website.

I was delighted to see that last month she published a robust blog post on the topic that fleshes out what I wrote about. It’s called How to BEGIN with the Box and I urge you to check it out, even if you’ve read my post. It provides great detail and it includes the downloadable pdf of the handout, along with photos and explanations.

When I drove to Walla Walla in September, I took the opportunity to bring home a box of family stuff. It’s not so much documents as photos, but I intend to use Stacy’s framework as I go through it. (The box been sitting unopened for almost six weeks now…I think our stay-at-home holiday time will be a good time to address it.)

If you have a box of family memorabilia to go through, do yourself a favor and check out her terrific post. You can thank me (well, really, Stacy) later.

Quick Tip #10: Start with a research question

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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. My research always goes better when follow the advice in this tip!

Start your research session with a question

It can be fun to click around on Ancestry and Family Search and just see what you can find. But if instead you start your session with a research question in mind, your precious research time will be better spent. Knowing what you’re looking for helps you stay focused and resist temptation. If you come across tempting information that doesn’t pertain to your research question, you can make note of it in your research log (or somewhere else) so you can come back to it at a later session.

Having a research question for each session is bound to make your sessions more productive and move your research along more quickly.

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

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.