At the end of last year, I devised a scheme for 2014 in which I’d focus on one of my family lines per quarter. The idea was to keep my research focused and to have a list of organizing-related tasks for each line that I’d want to have completed by the end of the quarter.
We’re just past the half way point of the quarter, and I thought it was time I took stock of how this scheme was working out.
First, I will say that it has been really helpful having a single line (this quarter, it’s my father’s father’s line, the Adamses) that I’m focusing on. It’s diminished the overwhelming feeling I sometimes get when I think about getting started on a research project.
(Another big help in keeping me focused has been my Research Tracker, part of the Family History Organizer custom notebook I developed for Springpad, which you can download into your Springpad account.)
In re-reading that blog post today, I realized that I’ve doing a pretty good job on the research-related aspects of my quarterly goals:
- 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
I haven’t accomplished them all yet, but I’ve been making slow and steady progress.
Where I’m falling behind is on the ambitious list of quarterly organizing tasks I’d put together, namely:
- 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
- Attach photos to my family tree in Reunion
So for the rest of the month, I think I’m going to get back to marrying my electronic and paper files, and see what photos I have that I can attach to my family tree. And I’ll pull out my progress tracker and make sure it’s up to date.
What I like about this quarterly plan is that it’s adding a little urgency to the activities, by providing a deadline after which I switch focus. And it’s helping me clear an organizing backlog. At year’s end, my electronic files should be in a great shape, I should know where I stand, and I will have made progress on my research. Even if I don’t accomplish all of that, I will have made progress and I can continue moving forward next year.
Of course, time will tell. But I will keep you posted on my progress!
After viewing some of the RootsTech videos especially the CEO of Family Search; what are your thoughts on putting your tree on-line with Family Search?
Jerry
I left Roots Tech thinking that putting my family tree online with either Family Search or Ancestry is probably a good idea. My challenge is that I don’t want my tree to be stored only in the cloud. It’s important to me to have it in software on my hard drive. So the perceived effort in getting it online is a bit of a barrier for me. I told myself I’d explore that in the coming months.
I haven’t had a chance to watch more of the online videos for sessions I didn’t attend (there were about a dozen sessions to choose from in each time period), but I hope to watch them all. There was a session with a panel discussion of online family trees (good or evil?) that I wish I’d attended and that I wish were available online right now, but it isn’t.
The other thing I’ve been contemplating since attending RootsTech is using DNA in genealogy.
Ay-yi-yi! Got so excited having Ancestry.com I’ve made a mess of it.
Any visual tutorials available for the simple-minded, fly by the seat of your pants, hate to read instructions, extremely frustrated cousin you just found?
Doing our Adams bunch I got my mother Emmagene Adams the mother of Henry Clay McEuen and Elizabeth J. Baker and their descendents……………. ugh!
Julie, I’m sorry to hear you’re so frustrated! I’m going to send you a private email to try to get more information on how you’ve made a mess of it and see if I can offer any advice. Who knows, maybe it’ll turn into a future blog post….