Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Focusing my efforts in 2014

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My strategy for focusing my genealogy efforts in 2014In December every year, I take some time to set some goals. I set them for my organizing business and for my personal life. This will be the second year I’ve set goals for my genealogy research. (If you want, you can read the goals I set last year.)

In thinking about my genealogy goals for 2014, I realized that I really want to be more focused and organized in going about my research. I still struggle with not knowing what to work on in any given session. And that lack of focus makes it hard for me to actually get started.

I just hit upon an idea that I think I’ll try. I’m going to assign a family line to each quarter of the year. In this structure (which I just thought of, so it’s still evolving in my head), I won’t be limited to working on that line necessarily, but if I don’t have something else specific I want to do, I will work on the family line assigned to that quarter.

I’ve decided that the schedule will be as follows:

  • 1st quarter: Adams (my father’s father’s line)
  • 2nd quarter: Brown (my mother’s father’s line)
  • 3rd quarter: Rasco (my father’s mother’s line)
  • 4th quarter: Jeffries (my mother’s mother’s line)

At the start of each quarter, I’ll take stock of where my research lies. I’ll use my progress tracker to see what census, vital and military records I’ve already located.

During each quarter, I’ll try to do the following for each of the lines:

  • Fill in the gaps on my progress tracker
  • Make sure my surname files for that line are organized on my hard drive
  • Ensure that everything in my paper files for that line is also organized on my hard drive
  • Fill in collateral relatives on my family tree in Reunion
  • Search for sources for unsourced data provided to me by cousins
  • Go up at least one generation in verified information
  • Attach photos to my family tree in Reunion

What I like about this idea is that it should keep me more focused. And help me feel less overwhelmed. It should get me past the “what should I work on today?” question that can be such a barrier. And, perhaps best of all, it gives me some specific goals and a deadline–the end of the quarter. (I love a deadline!)

Tiny organizing projects

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Time to empty that To File file!For many people, this is a five-day weekend. A glorious expanse of time that might include some family history research. While doing your research is certainly important, I encourage you this weekend to also spend a little time organizing it.

I’m not suggesting that you pull everything out and try to organize it all. If you do that, you risk not finishing and ending up with a bigger mess than when you started.

Rather, I’m suggesting you take a look at your genealogy space and/or records and visualize some little projects. Do you have a group of photos you can organize? Some filing you can do? Some order to create on your hard drive? Maybe you need to create a research plan or put together a comprehensive to-do list.

My point here is that when it comes to organizing your family history, you probably have a whole series of tiny organizing projects you can do a little at a time. If you spend 30 minutes each day this weekend (and perhaps every weekend), you could get a surprisingly large amount of organizing done.

Take a look around and spot a small project. Write it down and look for another. Do this a few times and you have a great (hopefully not overwhelming) organizing task list.

I’ll be doing the same this weekend. Happy organizing!

The iPad for genealogy?

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iPad Air - my new genealogy friend? I’m an unabashed Apple fangirl. I bought my first MacBook in 2008. (I replaced it with a MacBook Pro in 2011.) A couple of months later, I bought an iPod Touch, which rocked my world. In 2010, I bought the original version of the iPad. I loved it. I bought my first iPhone (a 4S) in 2012. I adore it even more.

After I got my iPhone, my iPad lay dormant. The newer iPhone was so much faster than the older iPad that I couldn’t even tolerate using it. So I ended up selling it to Gazelle for $100. (I hope that doesn’t make me sound fickle!)

Now I’m giving serious thought to buying an iPad Air within the next month or so. One of the things I want to use it for is genealogy research. So far, my research has been pretty much restricted to my computer and my home office. But I’m planning for that to change in 2014 and I think I’ll venture into family history libraries and other record depositories. And I’m going to RootsTech.

So I’m curious. Do you have an iPad and, if so, do you use it for your genealogy research? Do you love it? Why or why not? Please help me decide!

Label old photos while you can

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A great example of how not to label a photo!

A great example of how not to label a photo!

I’m visiting my parents in Walla Walla, Washington, and today my mother and I went through (for the second or third time) a big box of photos that she inherited after her mother passed away. Most of the photos are from here father’s family, the Browns. Thanks to my getting to know some of the Brown cousins earlier this year, the names made more sense than they had in the past.

But oh how I wish more of the photos had been labeled. And that those that were labeled had better labels! (The photo with this post is of the back of one of the photos we looked at today.) And, of course, my other big wish is that I’d taken the time a decade or more ago, when my mother’s memory was stronger, to go through them with her.

If all the photos had been labeled with the first and last names of those pictured and the date the photo was taken, my time going through them with my mother would have been more of a trip down memory lane for her, rather than a series of head scratchers. But we did make some progress and we had a very nice time.

My mother has given me permission to take the photos home with me. I intend to do more detective work and scan the photos that I can identify and attach them to my family tree. (Yet another reason to buy the scanner I’m coveting!) I’ll be attending the Brown family reunion in June and my intention is to bring those photos with me and ask for help in identifying some of the unlabeled photos. And, of course, I’ll be happy to share photos.

Once I get home from my trip and start dealing with these photos, I’ll do more research on what to do with the originals, as well as how to electronically tag and file the photos for ease of access in sharing. (And I’ll share here.)

I have many steps ahead of me. But one thing I know is that while I’m grateful that generations before me hung on to these photos, I wish they’d taken the time to give them good labels!

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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.