Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Paper vs electronic: What a difference two years makes!

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paperpilecroppedI just took another gander at a blog post I wrote on August 16, 2012, called How I organize my family history research. I still organize my research papers the same way I described in that post–my filing system has withstood the test of time.

But what really jumped out at me was this paragraph:

…I have to tell you that 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.

I’m pretty happy to report that times have changed. I’ve created an electronic file system that allows me to find  documents on my computer easily (though I’m still discovering files that haven’t been properly named or filed). So now I don’t feel the need to print everything and put them in files. It’s positively liberating.

That means my files are available wherever my laptop is. (Or my iPad, since much of my genealogy research is also stored in Dropbox.) I can do research from any room in the house, or any room in the world, for that matter.

Back in May, I extolled the virtues of going paperless. I am so happy that my need to print is vanishing!

Yes, my paper filing system is working well. But these days, I use it only for retrieving documents I filed there in the past. I’m just not adding to it. And that’s okay by me!

 

Readers weigh in on blog-reading tools

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Feedly is popular among genealogy blog readersEarlier this month, I solicited your suggestions for blog-reading tools. I was interested in hearing how you keep up with the various blogs you read. I was thrilled to receive about a dozen comments with suggestions. As promised, I’m compiling them here for easy reference.

Feedly was the blog reader of choice for five commenters. Two of those were Thomas MacEntee and Jana Last, whose blogs highlight other genealogy blogs, use Feedly. If Feedly is good enough for these blog power-readers, I think it’s probably good enough for me. I’ve just downloaded it and am going to give it a go. So far, set up has been intuitive and easy!

Here are the other suggestions (each of which were mentioned once), in case you want to try any of them:

Several people mentioned that they formerly used and like Google Reader. Alas, Google, in its infinite wisdom, discontinued that service last year.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to share information for this post!

Trying out Ancestry.com family tree

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Ancestry family tree screenshot from iPhoneThanks to the lively discussion here earlier this month about public vs private family trees on Ancestry, I decided to go ahead and create a GEDCOM file from my Reunion software and upload it to Ancestry. I  considered the pros and cons of a public tree, as expressed in the comments of that post (I so appreciate the comments!), and decided to make the tree private when I uploaded it, do some quality control, and then make it public once it’s ready.

I’d been keeping all my data on my computer in Reunion, rather than on Ancestry, because I don’t like to rely on cloud-based databases; I really like the information to reside on my hard drive. But I decided to upload the file for four reasons:

  • I’m intrigued by the prospect of the shaky-leaf hints (though I understand they often lead nowhere).
  • I would like to find cousins.
  • I would like to help others with my research.
  • I just did an Ancestry DNA test and I want to be able to link the results to a tree to give me maximum return.

So I uploaded the tree this week, which was very easy. But then I hit a snag. I am meticulous about not adding any ancestor for which I don’t have a source to my tree. Everything is sourced. But the sources don’t upload in a satisfactory manner. The source is noted in non-hyperlinked text. So the source is there, but isn’t as helpful to others (or me) as I was expecting. (I did a google search and apparently that’s just the way Reunion talks to Ancestry.)

The shaky leaf hints, though, make it easy to add many of these sources as hyperlinks that others can click on. So yesterday, I spent some time going through the hints, evaluating them, and adding them to records. I’m starting with the Rasco family (that’s my father’s mother’s family, and this quarter’s focus).

Two challenges came to the forefront immediately. One is keeping my Reunion software updated while I’m adding things to my Ancestry tree. (In other words, if I come across new data that’s not already in Reunion, I have to be diligent about adding it to Reunion as well as to the tree.) The other is overwhelm. I need to take this one person at a time, and try not to skip around or get lost in exploring and evaluating other people’s research on my family members.

For the moment, the tree is still private as I get a handle on the source situation. But I intend to make it public soon. I’m already so grateful for those who have public trees.

I think ultimately I’ll be glad that I have put my tree on Ancestry. It seems to have potentially added another layer of complexity (and work) to my research activities–and I really do like to keep things simple. But once I get through this source situation, I think it will be great to have an online tree and I’ll be delighted if it helps others and helps me meet new-to-me cousins.

Public vs private trees on Ancestry.com

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Pubic or private family trees?I keep track of my family tree on my Mac with Reunion software. I do that because I like having my data stored on my hard drive (backed up, of course), rather than in the cloud. When I first started focusing on my genealogy research a few years ago, I created a small family tree on Ancestry.com,  entering a few family members on my father’s side of the family. (Including my father’s paternal grandparents, at left.) But I soon realized that I preferred storing my genealogy data on my computer.

Lately I’ve been thinking that it might be wise for me to add my family tree data to Ancestry.com. That way I could benefit from the shaky leaf hints that Ancestry provides and perhaps make connections with relatives.

I’m dedicated to adding only sourced data to my family tree on Reunion and it would be the same on Ancestry. If I do create Ancestry.com trees, I would continue to keep my data in Reunion as my primary genealogy data storage, updating Ancestry periodically.

But I don’t know whether to make my Ancestry tree public or private. It seems to me that a public tree would be a way to be helpful to others. Am I missing a pitfall or danger of making my tree public, especially since my data will be sourced?

If you have a tree on Ancestry, I’d love to hear whether it’s public or private and what led to that decision. Thank you in advance!!