Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Digging deeper

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diggingdeeperI really enjoyed the Midwestern Roots family history and genealogy conference I attended last weekend in Indianapolis. The speakers were excellent and the content was really rich. And I met three of my blog readers, Candace, Jean and Judi. It was great  sitting down with them and getting to know one them. And it was wonderful running into ready-made friends throughout the  conference.

My big take away from the conference is that I want to dig deeper about my ancestors. Looking back at my blog, I saw that I wrote about this 18 months ago when I returned from RootsTech, in a post called It’s not about climbing the tree. This has been a recurring theme in my research and my thought process. But this year it feels a little different, because I left with some real tools I can use for that excavation. And I have a week at the Allen County Public Library’s Genealogy Center next month where I can really get into it.

Here are some highlights of the conference for me:

  • I went to not one but three talks by Curt Witcher, the senior manager for special collections at the Allen County Public Library, in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. He did the opening keynote on the importance of telling stories in genealogy. That prompted me to attend his talk on how find those stories. And then, of course, I went to his talk on the holdings of his library. He’s an amazing speaker–I’m pretty sure I’d sign up to hear him talk on just about anything. He has a wonderful sense of humor–there was  a great deal of laughter in all his talk. But he is also so expressive that he actually brought people (and himself) to tears in the opening session. His message of filling in the stories between the birth and death dates had a big impact on me.
  • A priority talk for me was the one by Deena Coutant about how to prepare for a repository trip. Luckily for me it was in the second session and it provided a great groundwork for my thoughts throughout the conference on how best to use the month I have before my trip the Allen County Public Library (the second largest genealogy library in the nation). And I know the preparation for that trip is going to be a critical component of making that trip a successful use of my time and money. And now I have some tools for that preparation!
  • I heard talks on using both Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.com. I have to admit that I use Ancestry more than Family Search, mostly because I find the latter’s user interface non-intuitive. But thanks to the talk by Deena Coutant (I heard her twice!) I feel I know my way around that site a bit better and I’m going to try to use it more. The talk by Ancestry’s Juliana Szucs on getting the most from Ancestry was eye-opening to me. I learned that searching within individual types of records and collection can reveal results not available with a top-level search. In other words, it’s worthwhile to dig deeper on Ancestry.
  • Cece Moore gave the opening keynote on the second day, about telling stories with DNA with anecdotes from the PBS program, “Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates,” on which she serves as the genetic genealogy consultant and researcher. The talk was really fun and inspired me to try again to understand my DNA results and reach out to potential relatives who might be helpful with my genealogy research. It’s pretty easy for my mind to click off when it comes to DNA and I had put my quest for understanding on the back burner. Listening to CeCe helped me understand how helpful the clues you get from DNA test results can be. That is an area in which I will try to dig deeper.
  • And, lastly, I really enjoyed and benefited from Lisa Louise Cooke’s talk on new features of Google and how they can help genealogists. I have to admit that I consider myself an excellent Googler. But I don’t typically use the search operators Lisa explained (and, truth be told, I rarely use Google as a search tool for my genealogy research). I was thrilled to learn how to find results in Google Books and clip them with the built-in clipper, which creates a unique, sharable URL for the clipping. Wow! I also was inspired to give Google Earth another try. I’m going to try to incorporate Google more into my research toolkit.

As you can tell, the Midwestern Roots conference was really inspiring and energizing for me. I loved that a single theme emerged for me so strongly.  I am so excited to go back to Indiana for my trip to the Allen County Public Library in a month and so grateful to have learned some tools to prepare for it. I’ll blog more about that plan soon!

Photo by Eselsmann via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

Just a little bit counts

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10minutetimerI’ve been trying hard to adhere to my new routine of doing genealogy research first thing in the morning. The trouble is that some mornings are busier than others. When I have an 8:30 client appointment it can be challenging for me to find the time to do research. My genealogy research is important to me, but it’s not urgent.

For the last month, I’ve done at least a little research almost every morning. I’ll set my timer for as little as ten minutes and research for that short amount of time. Since my current project is systematically going through my source documentation–which is actually proving to be really interesting and enjoyable–I know exactly where to start and I know that a little bit of focused time will move me along.

What I’ve discovered in doing this is that the benefit goes beyond furthering my research. Keeping myself engaged in my research on a daily basis makes me more excited to work on it. It also makes me feel more connected to my ancestors and helps me remember names and dates.

For the first half of the year I thought a lot about my genealogy research but I didn’t do a lot of it. Mostly I just felt anxious or guilty about not taking the time to work on it. These days, I’m still thinking a lot about it, but my thoughts are happy and productive. That’s a wonderful shift.

Doing just a tiny bit of daily action reaps big results. This is true in family history research. It’s also true in organizing your family history research. And let’s face it–it’s true in many other aspects of life, like exercise and healthy eating.

Daily habits are the foundation of an easy life. I’ve said that for years as a professional organizer. Now I’m seeing it come true in my genealogy research. I love it!

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!

It’s my 4th blogiversary!

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happyblogiversarylgI published my first post on Organize Your Family History four years ago today, on June 14, 2012. This is my 282nd post. I can’t believe how quickly time flies!

I love writing this blog. It helps keep my genealogy research top of mind.  I learn so much researching the posts. But I think what I love most of all is interacting with my readers. Your comments are so educational and so appreciated!! And I’m grateful to have met some of you in person.

The readership of the blog grew very quickly in the first few years but growth has slowed down as the blog matures. That doesn’t surprise me–I can’t expect that kind of growth forever. I was delighted to surpass 100,000 pageviews last year and I certainly hope to do that again this year, though I’d better start blogging more frequently if I’m going to accomplish that. (It’s been a year of competing priorities.)

At the risk of boring you, but for the sake of continuity, I’ll spout some statistics here about the blog, as I’ve done for each blogiversary post. I find it interesting and it’s helpful for me to be able to look back.

In the fourth year of Organize Your Family History there were (as compared with last year):

  • 60 posts (72 last year)
  • 94, 172 pageviews (84, 270 last year)
  • 451 comments, about half of which were from me (compared with 245 last year)
  • 344 subscribers (272 last year)

If you’re interested in data from the previous two years, check out my 3d blogiversary post.

I have so loved meeting readers at genealogy conferences and look forward to meeting more at the Midwestern Roots Family History and Genealogy Conference in Indianapolis next month (please let me know, if you haven’t already, if you’re going to be there and you’d like to meet up!).

On this, my fourth blogiversary, I just want to say thank you for reading the blog. It’s such a joy to know you’re reading!