Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Staying connected with my ancestors

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In June, I completed the 30 x 30 challenge in which I did at least 30 minutes of genealogy research a day the whole month. Then I kept it up into July, managing to research each day through July 9. I’d created a wonderful routine of doing genealogy research first thing in the morning. It was a great way to start the day.

Then my routine was disrupted by a pre-planned trip to visit my dad in Walla Walla, Washington. Unfortunately, he ended up being hospitalized after a fall the day I arrived. So my days have been spent first at the hospital, then the rehab facility. He comes home in a couple of days and I go back to my home in six days. So I just haven’t had the luxury of time alone to do research. (This also explains why I didn’t blog last week!)

I was really struck yesterday by how much I miss researching. I miss my connection with my ancestors. And I miss making progress. I also miss my peaceful morning routine.

I’m trying to stay connected with my ancestors by talking with my dad and my aunt (his sister) about family history. I’ve been able to share some information that they didn’t know, uncovered in my research. And my aunt gave me the beautiful photo above of her mother as a baby, with her sister and parents. (The parents are William Reese Rasco, 1878-1957 and Louella Watts Rasco, 1879-1953. The kids are my great aunt Lessie Rasco, 1901-1994, and my grandmother, Beatrix Rasco Adams, 1907-1987.)

I hope having researched daily for 39 days will help me get right back into the swing of things when I get home next week. Perhaps I can get started before that, once once my dad is in his home and I’m hanging out with him there.

What I want to avoid is losing my mojo and getting out of the habit of researching. So you may see another 30 x 30 challenge coming up sooner rather than later!

It’s my 5th blogiversary!

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I published the first Organize Your Family History post on June 14, 2012. I can’t believe it’s already been five years. In past blogiversary posts, I’ve cited some statistics about the blog but I figure that that has to be pretty boring to anybody but me. (I’m still tracking the data in a spreadsheet, so feel free to email me if you would like to know stats about numbers of posts, comments, and pageviews.)

I will say that the blog readership continues to grow and I’m on track to hit 150,000 pageviews in 2017, which is about 50 percent more than 2015 & 2016. I’m really thrilled about. that Comments are up, too–thank you so much to all of you who comment. I really enjoy the interaction.

Instead of spouting statistics on this blogiversary post, I thought I’d write a little about how I’ve evolved as a genealogy researcher over the last five years. The great thing about having a blog is that your history is at your disposal. So here’s my evolution as a genealogist over the last five years, as documented on this blog:

  • I’m almost completely paperless. On August 12, 2012, I wrote, “I’m a paper person. I know I could (and perhaps should) save documents, like census images, as pdfs and just organize them on my computer. But I really like printing them out and keeping them in files. So that’s what I do.” Wow. Nowadays I almost never print anything out and the documents are beautifully organized on my computer. I’ve developed an awesome digital workflow that works really well for me. And I’ve even coauthored (with scanning guru Brooks Duncan) The Paperless Genealogy Guide. What a difference five years makes.
  • I now understand that researching away from my desk can be really beneficial. Five years ago, all my research was done online, from my desk. And that was great. But now I’ve gone on some great research trips, both library trips and cemetery trips. (I need to start doing courthouse trips!) They enhance my research so much. Trips that take me to where my ancestors lived make me feel closer to them. I can’t wait to go on my next one.
  • I’m finally keeping a research log. In 2012 I wrote about keeping a research log. I had the best of intentions, but it didn’t stick. At least once a year, I would resolve to try again. And I would fail. At the end of 2016, I set a goal of creating a genealogy research log habit in 2017 and I set up a Facebook group for those who also want to create the habit, Genealogy Research Loggers. (Feel free to join us; it’s a pretty quiet group.) I’m proud to say that almost halfway through the year, the habit feels engrained. Part of my success is the simplicity of the log I keep. But it’s doing its job of keeping me focused and helping me remember what I’ve researched and where I am in my research. It’s very rewarding.
  • I’m researching more frequently. Thanks to the 30 x 30 challenges I started in 2015 (in which I challenge myself and my readers to do 30 minutes of genealogy research each day for 30 days), I’m getting a lot more research done. And since I have a research log in which I write next steps, I don’t have the barrier of deciding what to work on when I sit down to start a research session. The result is more frequent researching, though the sessions may be shorter. It keeps my head in the game and keeps genealogy top of mind.
  • I’m more focused. One of the challenges I find with genealogy research is that as the family tree grows, there are so many opportunities to explore new things (or shiny objects). At the beginning of 2014, I created a scheme in which I would focus on one family line (that is the ancestors of one grandparent) each quarter. That helped me maintain some focus. In 2017, I decided I would spend the whole year focused on one line, my paternal grandfather’s line. I imagine that might sound boring to some, but I love it! It happens that my grandfather’s grandfather has a Civil War pension file that is rich with information and offers lots of clues to explore. (I’m making progress on transcribing that pension file…I’m on document 107 of 138.)  I’m not the least bored with limiting my research to this one family line this year. I love the focus.
  • I went from a conference attendee to a conference speaker! I love conferences, especially genealogy conferences. Since 2013, I’ve been to a dozen genealogy conferences, ranging from smaller local or regional conferences to RootsTech, which draws some 10,000 to 20,000 attendees. This year I was thrilled to be a presenter at RootsTech. I co-presented, with Brooks Duncan (my Paperless Genealogy Guide co-writer), a session called Go Paperless: Streamline and Digitize Your Research. I’d like to speak at other genealogy conferences in coming years. (Feel free to suggest topics you think would be good to hear from me!)

Bloggers are really fortunate in that reading blog archives can bring to mind long-forgotten memories. I’ve enjoyed putting together this post to remind me how far I’ve come in the last five years. I want to thank you for reading the blog and give thanks those of you who comment and especially those I’ve met in person. This blog has enhanced my life and I’m very grateful!

Kiss me, I’m Irish!

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DNA test. Now what?Last year on St. Patrick’s Day, I wrote a post about my DNA ethnicity results. It seems appropriate to run it again today. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I never felt much of a connection to March 17 until I had my DNA tested through Ancestry DNA. Then I discovered in that test that I’m 38% Irish. (That’s my pie chart in the picture.) I knew that Ireland was in my family tree, but I haven’t researched much that far back to realize that it was an important part of my heritage.

Growing up, Irish roots were never mentioned. All that came up was vague mention of England, though in reality our heritage wasn’t much discussed. That’s probably because there were  no immigrants recent enough for my parents or grandparents’ to have known them. We always just felt American.

When I had my DNA tested, it was in an effort to meet cousins and further my genealogical research. (Understanding those results is an ongoing project.) The ethnicity component of didn’t even enter my mind. But today, St. Patrick’s Day, it feels nice to have a kinship with my Irish forebears, though I’m still learning about who they were.

If you’re curious about your own DNA, Ancestry DNA is having a sale–10% off kits through March 19, 2017.

If you’ve had your DNA tested were you surprised by the ethnicity results?

My genealogy research plan for 2017

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I’ve been giving some thoughts to the goals I want to set for my genealogy research for next year. I’m a big goal setter and I’ve written posts about my genealogy goals for 2013, 2014, and 2015. (I guess that I didn’t set any for 2016. I blame my puppy, Bix, who completely disrupted the 2015/2016 transition.)

I reviewed those posts this week and was struck by the fact that while I’m pretty good about setting genealogy goals, I’m pretty bad at achieving them.

So this year, I decided to keep it painfully simple. I’m setting only three four goals. And I’m narrowing my focus, in a big way.

I know that I do better with fewer options because I’m easily overwhelmed by choices. In 2014 I addressed that by coming up with a plan to focus on one family line per quarter.

In 2017, I’ve decided to take this a step further and focus on a single family line the whole year. 2017 is  going be the year of the Adams family. This feels big to me–simultaneously exciting and weirdly scary. But I feel if I keep my focus on the Adams family (starting by finishing the transcribing and abstracting George Washington Adams’ giant pension file), I will stay more focused and dig deeper. I’m a little concerned it might get boring, but I don’t think so.

You can bet that I’ll let you guys know how it goes.

The three four goals I’ve set (in concert with limiting my focus) are:

  1. Research at least five days a week
  2. Take at least one research trip
  3. Attend at least two genealogy conferences, to avoid tunnel vision and keep me sharp. (One of those will be RootsTech, since I’m speaking there. I haven’t yet determined the other(s).)
  4. Create a habit of logging each research session. (I added this goal after my ruminations on December 27 that led to this post.)

How about you? Do you set goals for your genealogy research? If so, do you care to share them?