Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Getting past overwhelm by breaking a project down

By 6 Comments

getting past overwhelm by breaking down a projectAs I plug away at transcribing my 2nd great grandfather’s 137-document pension file, I keep thinking to myself how valuable it is that I’m doing this one small document at a time. When I started, the idea of transcribing this vast file seemed insurmountable. The printed sheaf of papers that I received from the National Archives is nearly an inch tall!

But rather than think about the enormity of transcribing the whole file, I’m just looking at the next document. Then the one after that. I’m trying to work on it at least 30 minutes daily (even after the succcessful end of my latest 30 x 30 challenge two weeks ago, I’ve only missed a couple of days) and slowly but surely I’m getting through it. Today, I transcribed documents 47 and 48. Before long, I’ll be halfway done.

Once or twice I’ve questioned the value of this exercise. But as soon as I do that, I discover something I didn’t notice on first reading, when I wasn’t transcribing. There’s no doubt in my mind that transcribing these pension documents is a valuable use of my time.

So here’s my big takeaway, which of course can be applied to many aspects of my life. When I’m facing a large, seemingly insurmountable project, I can get past overwhelm and eventually complete it if I:

  • Break it down into small tasks
  • Do one task at a time
  • Work on it very regularly, for a small period of time

This strategy is working well on the pension file. I can’t wait to get all the way to the end and see what discoveries has in store for me!

A commenter asked for the steps on requesting a Civil War pension file.  Here they are:

  1. Go to this page on the National Archives website.
  2. Select NATF 85D: Federal Military Pension Application – Civil War and Later Complete File
  3. Select delivery format (I selected paper)
  4. Click Add to Cart
  5. Login or register
  6. Fill out form with your ancestor’s name, military unit and other information (if you don’t have that, check out Ancestry.com or Fold3.com to get it)
  7. Pay $80 online
  8. Wait for your packet!

Clutter-free genealogy gifts

By 4 Comments

Since I deal with clutter in my clients’ homes all year long, this time of year I’m always thinking (and writing) about the benefits of giving intangible gifts. A year ago I created a post about clutter-free gifts for genealogists. It still holds true, so I’ve decided to run it again today (with a few updates).

As a professional organizer, I frequently help clients declutter their physical possessions. Over and over again I’ve seen how difficult it is for most folks to let go of an item they’d received as a gift, even if they don’t use or love it.

This realization has changed the way I give gifts. As I’ve written repeatedly on my organizing blog, I think it’s much kinder to give a gift that doesn’t have a chance to turn into clutter. So I find myself giving these types of gifts:

  • digital gifts (iTunes gift certificate, or a subscription to Amazon Prime, for example)
  • services (gift certificate for a massage or a float)
  • ephemeral goods (like edibles and cut flowers) and
  • experiences (an outing or meal together)

If you have any genealogy enthusiasts on your list, you’re in luck. There are all sorts of opportunities to give clutter-free gifts to those folks. Here are some ideas.

  • A subscription to an online service, like Ancestry, Fold3 or MyHeritage
  • A membership in a local society or other association, like the NGS or the Southern California Genealogy Society (so they can have access to the webinar archives, my pick for deal of the century)
  • A gift certificate to work with a professional genealogist
  • The story behind a mystery photo, revealed by Maureen Taylor, photo detective.
  • One or more of my Orderly Roots guides (you could download it for them and email it, or contact me for a special code they can use to download a guide you pay for)
  • Your help with their genealogy (maybe offer to spend a couple of hours on one of their brick walls)
  • Your help decluttering or organizing their research space
  • A trip together to a cemetery or research library
  • Registration for a genealogy conference (they could hear me speak at RootsTech 2017!)
  • A donation in their name to a worthy genealogy cause (like Preserve the Pensions or their favorite genealogy society)

If you do want to give a physical item, be sure it’s useful. You could consider a Flip-Pal mobile scanner or a ShotBox portable photo light box. Perhaps less utilitarian, but a lovely, meaningful gift is the family tree necklace. I adore the one I gave myself.

Before you buy anything, check out the Genealogy Bargains area of the Geneabloggers website to see if there are any special deals to be found!

Illustration by Traci Gardner via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

Recording negative research

By 12 Comments

badsearchAs someone who tries to be an organized genealogist, I think one of the hardest things to remember to do is to make a note of my fruitless searches. When you do a search and get no results, the natural thing to do is to plow ahead and tweak the search and try again or to try searching another collection (or another ancestor).

But if you take the time to document that negative search, you might save yourself from duplicating that fruitless search in the near future (and therefore save yourself some time).

To me, the tricky part is figuring out how to record it. If you’re faithful about a research log (high five!), it seems fairly straightforward to include it in your log.

But if you’re one of those people (and I have to admit to being one of them) who doesn’t record everything faithfully in a log, you might have to devise a system specifically for negative research.

Here’s what I’m going to try. Using Evernote, I’ve created a Negative Research notebook in my Genealogy stack. I’ll try to remember to create a note when I spend time on fruitless research, making note of what I searched for and where, what the results were and when I did the search. By putting surnames in the note, I’ll easily be able to access the note on a simple search in Evernote, if I’m looking for information I stored there on a specific family member.

One caveat: I’m often searching sites like Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org, so I need to bear in mind that they’re constantly adding new collections. So just because a search came up blank one day doesn’t mean that it won’t bear fruit a year (or more or less) down the road. Periodically, I’ll try to remember to check out my Negative Research notebook and see if it’s time to try that search again.

I’m hopeful this system will help me save precious research time.

How about you? Do you record your negative research? If so, how do you do it?

Transpose shutting down December 9

By 4 Comments

I have posted here about Transpose, the app I have used to create custom forms, including some forms for my genealogy research.

When I logged in this morning to access some information, I was really disappointed to see the following banner at the top of the site:

transposeclose

I wasted no time exporting my data into spreadsheets or pdfs, as appropriate, so I’ll lose nothing. But I will miss this very easy way to to gather information.

I am getting so tired of hopping on the bandwagon of great apps that then fold (see Springpad). I hope and trust that Evernote is here to stay because I have loads of information stored there. I am encouraged by its popularity and the fact it has a multi-tiered paid model.

But still. This strengthens my resolve to store as much data as possible on my hard drive, rather in the cloud. (Though my resolve was shaken a little a couple of weeks ago when I had to do a clean reinstall of my operating system. It all worked out, though.)

If you starting using Transpose on my recommendation, I’m sorry. Please don’t forget to export your data before December 9!

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.