Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Downsizing when you’re the family historian

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I was so delighted to see in my email this week that my friend, Amy Johnson Crow, is promoting the podcast episode she and I recorded back in the fall of 2019, Downsizing and Family History.

When I spoke to her in 2019 I didn’t have any personal experience with dealing with inherited family history items. I always viewed my parents as non-collectors and figured when the time came I wouldn’t be faced with too many challenges. But I’ve gained some experience now and there were plenty of challenges. In March, my father’s older sister moved into skilled nursing and I sold her home for her. (I’m her Power of Attorney.) I requested that any family-history related items be taken to my father’s condo for me to go through later. Then in May, I moved my father into assisted living and faced down going through his stuff and my aunt’s stuff in the same week so I could get his condo on the market. He passed away August 20, only three months after moving, and I needed to clear out his assisted-living apartment in a matter of a few days.

I tried to practice what I preach and get in touch with what’s important to me about these documents and photos. I tried to evaluate their potential value for future historians. I offered a bunch of stuff to my brothers (one took stuff, the other didn’t). And I shipped some boxes to myself.

I have sorted through the seven boxes I shipped in May but am still processing those documents and photos. I am anticipating a shipment today of stuff from my father’s apartment. I’ll spend some time in the coming week going through those items and figuring how/where to store them. I know that Stacy Julian’s method, How to BEGIN with the BOX, will be very helpful again.

As the family historian for my family, I feel a lot of responsibility for these items. But I’m going to use my expertise as a professional organizer to try to save those items that are the most valuable from a genealogy standpoint. My perspective, as I shared on Amy’s podcast, is that the more I keep of any one category of item, the less special any of it is. But I also know that now isn’t the best time to make decisions with lasting repercussions. So I will probably save more than I might otherwise for later consideration.

If you’ve been through this, I’d be very interested in hearing about your approach!

 

Finding time to research

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Ticking clockI’ve been having a frustrating month in terms of my genealogy research. I’m managing a complicated, multiple-destination move from a very large house for one of my organizing clients and simply don’t have much time left in my day for enjoyable things like genealogy research. (Luckily, I love this client and I love managing complicated moves.) Today, I’m adapting a blog post I wrote back in 2015 because the message resonates with me so much.

I love doing genealogy research. It’s a fairly big part of my life—because of this blog I actually think about my family research quite a lot. But I don’t always get to research as often as I’d like. And that’s a shame, because researching my family history feeds my soul.

We’re all busy with the daily activities of life. Throw kids, aging parents, demanding work, needy spouses or sick pets into the mix and sometimes it feels like we don’t have any time to do those things that really nourish us.

I believe that doing those things is really important for self care. So how can we find the time?

Time management is all about managing priorities. If you put everyone’s needs before your own, all you’ll be doing is putting out fires. And that’s not good for you. So I think it’s important to figure out little pockets of time that you can set aside as “me time.” During that special time, you can do that thing that keeps you going and that feeds your soul.

How can you find some pockets of time when you’re already so busy?

  • Get up a half hour early to do soul-nourishing activities
  • Drop an activity that you’re doing because you think you should, not because you want to
  • If you’re a TV watcher, have a no-TV day each week and put that time toward your desired activity
  • Find people who also do what you want to do (like a knitting group) and agree to do that activity together.
  • Block off time on your calendar to do something that feeds your soul
  • Explain to your family your need to have to time of your own and arrange for a redistribution of chores

The list could go on. Perhaps you just need to be a little creative.

If you’re saying to yourself, I can’t take time out for myself while my house is messy…that’ll have to wait until I get organized then please stop. It breaks my heart when people stop their messy homes from allowing them to live. Sure, work on your home, bit by bit (or hire someone to help you), but reward your efforts with some soul-nourishing activity.

Our lives our important and they should be as happy and fulfilling as possible. I’m a firm believer that we can take control of our time and do those things that bring fulfillment. If genealogy is important to you, perhaps you can find little pockets of time here and there to get back in touch (and stay in touch!) with your ancestors.

Can you make some time for yourself this weekend?

Photo by R.L. Hyde via Flickr

What to do with original documents after scanning

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I do most of my research online, so this hasn’t come up a lot. But this week I’m going through documents that had lived in my parents’ home and my aunt’s home and some of them are original vital records. I did my first group of ten a couple of days ago and scanned and processed them. And then I had to decide what to do with the originals.

This morning I went through the little stack one by one and followed my gut about those I wanted to file into the paper files I have left over from before I processed everything digitally and those I would feel comfortable discarding.

In truth, I could discard any of them, since I’ve captured the images. But my gut tells me to hang on to those documents that have original writing or signatures. An example is my parents’ marriage certificate, shown above. They were married by father’s uncle and I think he filled out the form. I don’t have a good, logical reason for this decision. It just feels right because these documents feel special. I have the space in my file cart and the files are already created, so it will be a simple matter to file them. If I have to create a new file folder label and put it on a folder to file something, I might feel like more trouble than it’s worth.

This is a matter of personal preference and I understand that my preferences might change. (And you may have a completely different preference.) If I end up with a lot more and it feels too laborious, I may revisit this criterion!

Inherited items: From overwhelm to order

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As I mentioned recently, last month I shipped seven boxes of photos and documents that had belonged to my father and aunt, both of whom have moved into care facilities. Actually, one of the boxes contained just a few large items, so it’s really six small-size moving boxes full of small items. They arrived last week and I vowed to not let them linger.

But looking at the unopened boxes, I felt overwhelmed about dealing with all the stuff. I told myself that I would go through a box a day for a week and I’m happy to say that I have been able to do that. I have one box left, which I plan to go through today.

My plan was to take everything out of the large boxes and sort the items so that they feel approachable.

So far I’ve been able to follow the plan! I used Stacy Julian’s How to BEGIN with the BOX approach, which I had used when I was dealing with a box of stuff I brought home from Walla Walla in 2020. That gave me a great framework for storing the sorted items until I can start going through them. Using Step One of Stacy’s methodology (adapted a little for my current needs), I divided the contents of the boxes into these categories:

  • Documents
  • Narratives and correspondence
  • Photos
  • Framed photos
  • Albums

I put the albums and framed photos in a bin to go through later. (But I did enjoy looking at them while I was emptying the boxes.) Once I get through the last box, I’ll turn my attention to the documents, as well as narratives and correspondence. I’ll employ Stacy’s Step Two, in which I’ll select 10 items at a time–the ones that interest me most–and scan them, then process them as I would anything I found online. After the first ten are finished, I’ll go back to the documents and select ten more and so on.

The photos will be a little trickier for me, but my plan is to scan them, share them with relatives and keep the originals stored in an archival box or boxes. I’ll do the same, in turn, with the framed photos and albums.

Incidentally, the unruly bunch in the photo at the top of this post is my father and aunt, with their parents, grandparents aunts and uncles. I’m not sure who all the kids are (yet). I had never seen that photo before this week and now, thanks to this project, I’m able to recognize my great grandparents, William Reese Rasco (1878-1957) and Luella Watts Rasco (187-1953), in photos. That makes me really happy.

Having a methodology to deal with the contents of these boxes is giving me huge peace of mind. (Thank you, Stacy Julian!) Having places to put the sorted items after I go through each big box has been hugely helpful in keeping me from feeling overwhelmed. I’m excited to go through the final box so I can started processing documents. I found a number of death certificates, birth certificates, diplomas, passports and newspaper articles that I know I’ll enjoy going through.

This has been a great focus for this month’s 30 x 30 challenge!

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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.