Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Resisting the urge to print

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1800sidebysideI used to print all my source documentation and then analyze the printed version and add facts to my Reunion software on my computer. In fact, as recently as 2013 I blogged about how printing gave me comfort.

But that’s changed and these days I’m not even tempted to print. In November, I posted 8 reasons not to print and I stand by it. Organizing my research is much easier now that I’m not looking at a lot of printed documents. Every now and then I pull out a paper file and look at something I printed years ago, but I bet that happens fewer than ten times a year.

Right now I’m going through all my source documentation and in the process cleaning up my electronic files. In doing so, I found the family who had been counted twice on the 1880 census. I needed to compare the two census documents side by side. That’s when I felt the urge to print. My initial thought was that it would be easier to look at the documents on paper, rather than on my computer. One of the documents had already been printed and was in my file. I came really close to printing out the other one, when I realized that looking at the paper documents would be harder for me, not easier. The type is so small on the printed document that I might have had to get out my magnifying glass and squint. That’s the opposite of easy!

I had originally found the census documents on Ancestry and saved them to my hard drive. So I just opened the documents on my computer in Preview (that’s the Mac default pdf and jpg viewer), zoomed in on the family in question and sized each of them so that they fit side by side on my screen easily–I didn’t need to see the entire document at a glance, after all. And then I was able to easily compare them, line by line. I had Reunion open as well, so it was simple for me to enter data into my ancestors’ records and source each fact properly.

What I’m learning in my research, over time, is that going paperless is just plain easier. When I transcribe my ancestors’ Civil War pension files, I use an electronic version, which allows me to zoom in when the handwriting is a little puzzling. And I’m not shuffling a lot of long pieces of paper. (Those documents came from the National Archives in paper form. I put source information on each and then scanned the whole file into one long pdf. I detail that process here.)

The keys to successfully eschewing printing, I believe, are twofold:

  1. A good file naming protocol and folder structure, so that I can easily see what I have for each ancestor. I file by surname and individual, which is working well for me.
  2. A solid backup protocol, in  case of hard drive failure. I use CrashPlan Pro to back up to the cloud and Time Machine to back my Mac onto an external hard drive that sits on my desk.

As commenter Maria Tello mentions, having a large monitor makes viewing electronic documents easier.

I was glad I resisted the urge to print that 1880 census document. It made analysis easier–and I’m sure it was easier on my eyes!

Counted twice on the census

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Counted twice on the censusOver the holiday weekend I spent some time researching my 3d great grandparents on my father’s side, Henry Clay McEuen (1823-1894) and his wife Elizabeth Baker McEuen (1829-1917). They lived their lives in Kentucky.

Henry and Elizabeth had 14 children, the eldest of whom was my great great grandmother, Henrietta McEuen Adams (1847-1902). As part of checking my sources, I was looking at Source 22, the 1880 federal census entry for Henrietta and her husband George Washington Adams (1845-1938) in Rumsey, Kentucky.

The entry for George and Henrietta spanned two pages. When I was looking at the second page, I noticed that Henrietta’s parents were on that page. They were living with nine of their children, along with four grandchildren and Elizabeth’s mother–a four-generation household. I went to add that source to their record in Reunion and saw that I already had a (different) source for them for the 1880 census. I figured I’d duplicated the same source and was surprised to see it was a separate enumeration, on a different date, in a different town. In this second enumeration, the youngest five of their children were with them. The names and ages all matched. It was clear to me that it was the same family.

I did a little googling and discovered that being counted twice isn’t that unusual. The census is supposed to reflect the state of a household as of the census date (which in 1880 was 1 June). But clearly, in the case of this family, it reflected the household on the days the enumerator knocked on the door. I suspect that’s not unusual.

On the first enumeration, on 11 June 1880, in Rumsey, McLean, Kentucky, Henry is listed as 55 years old and a farmer. In the second enumeration, on 29 June 1880, in Sacramento, McLean Kentucky (10 miles away on today’s roads), Henry is listed as 56 years old and a “tobacco speculator” (or at least that’s what I think it says–let me know if you think otherwise when you look at the photo above). A quick look at Henry’s birth date revealed that he was in fact a year older–he celebrated a birthday on 28 June, the day before the second enumeration.

I’m speculating that some time between 11 June and 29 June, Henry and Elizabeth (or Betty, as she was known), packed up their five children under 20 and moved to Sacramento. They left behind the four older children who had lived with them, including Lucretia, a widow, and her four kids, along with Betty’s mother, Mahala Baker. Henrietta and George lived nearby.

I wonder what prompted the couple to move away from five of their kids and her mother. Perhaps Sacramento was a better place to be a tobacco speculator, or perhaps Henry had not bought land yet, so couldn’t call himself a farmer. I look forward to trying to dig into this a little more to see why the family might have moved.

It’s really fun to me how a single discovery like this–a family being counted twice on a census–can lead to further hypotheses and discoveries. If they’d moved in May or July, rather than June, I wouldn’t have had this level of detail to go on.

I love playing detective and I’m grateful to Henry and Betty for providing so many clues!

 

Checking my sources

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Verifying my sourcesThis year I’ve been having the hardest time figuring out what I want to focus on in my genealogy research sessions. I think part of the problem is that I’ve also had trouble finding time to research, so it’s been more sporadic. And when I do have time, then I don’t know what to work on.

A couple of years ago, I tried focusing on a different line each quarter. That was successful, but this year I’m not researching frequently enough to make that work. Last year, I was really focused on processing and transcribing my ancestors’ Civil War pension files. That was great too, but I’m wanting to mix it up a bit more these days.

I know I need to figure out what I want to focus on during my week at the Allen County Library in August, which means that I feel the need to revisit my ancestors and remind myself of my mysteries.

So I lit on a strategy that, for the moment anyway, is working well for me. (And I also came up with a strategy that’s allowing me to research more frequently–more on that in the next post.) Here’s what I’m doing:

I’m going through all my sources in the Reunion family-tree software, checking the format, and attaching an image of the source to the source entry.

I exported the list of my 300 sources as an rtf file then opened the file in Evernote. I made the type big enough to read easily, then turned it one long bullet list with checkboxes for bullets. One by one, I’m going down the list and looking at each source and at the document that goes with the source. I’m checking the usage of the source. I attach the document as a multimedia file (leaving it on my hard drive in its folder, organized by surname and individual).  I’m getting reacquainted with my ancestors. And it’s been really fun.

I’m seeing several benefits to this process:

  • I know exactly where to start when I sit down to do research.
  • I’m cleaning up some formatting issues, since I became better at source documentation over time (so I’ve been able to make entries more consistent).
  • I’m making a list of things to investigate further, which will be helpful in planning my research trip.
  • I’m finding things I missed in the source documents the first time around.
  • I’m making new discoveries as I go along.
  • I get to work on a variety of ancestors every day, which suits me these days.
  • I see tangible progress every session.
  • I can make progress in just a few minutes, which is great when I don’t have a lot of time to research.
  • I’ve found that some electronic files had not been filed correctly and I’ve been able to refile them.
  • I end up with a wonderfully organized source list.
  • It’s systematic and enjoyable. I love checking off the box when I’m finished with that source!

If I wanted to focus on the sources of a single family, Reunion makes that easy for me. (I just click on “Family” rather than “All” in the sources list.) But for me, right now, mixing up the families by checking the sources in the order in which I entered them is working out nicely.

So far, I’ve checked off 20 of my now-306 sources. (I’ve made a few discoveries in the process, so I’ve added a few sources.) I’ve been doing a little a day for the last five days or so. Clearly it’s not fast work (though it may get faster as my sourcing gets better). But it’s beneficial and enjoyable. Hooray!

Who needs a staycation?

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nostaycationWeek before last, I blogged at my excitement over the prospect taking this week off to devote to genealogy research. You know what they say about the best laid plans.

I ended up having to schedule clients Thursday and Friday and yesterday was occupied with details surrounding moving back into our newly renovated kitchen (hooray!). So my staycation shrunk to two days.

My first thought was to abandon the idea and try to find another week to take off. But then I realized that (a) that week would probably never come and (b) I don’t need huge blocks of time to accomplish research. As I documented during my first 30 x 30 challenge, I can get a whole lot done by doing just a little every day.

I have other business- and kitchen-related things I need to do today and tomorrow, so I’m going to commit to grabbing at least two hours each day to do research. That’s four hours more than I did last week.

I have the week-long NGS research trip to the Allen County Public Library to look forward to in August. So I know I’ll get that intensive research time I crave. But in the meantime, I’m going to try to devote at least four hours a week during the eight weeks leading up the trip–taking time where I can find it–to get some research done.

This is an important reminder that, as appealing as a staycation is,  I don’t need a big chunk of time to get work done!

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