Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

I’m torn: facts or narrative

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As I contemplate the immediate direction I want my family history research to take, I’m torn. Part of me wants to start by verifying all the facts I’ve seen online by finding primary documents or other documents I can use for verification. But the other part of me wants to know the stories. I want to try to get to know these ancestors and figure out how they lived.

I’ve been led to believe that some of my ancestors crossed the Atlantic ocean on the Mayflower. Others lived in the wilds of Kentucky and hung out with Daniel Boone. Another helped settle New Amsterdam. This is interesting stuff. I want to learn more about it and perhaps write about it.

But that feels like putting the cart before the horse. Sure I can get the thrill of learning how my ancestors lived, but if I don’t verify the data, will I know they’re really my ancestors? Does that really matter?

I’ve decided that the right thing for me to do is to work on verifying data, via primary sources and census records. I like the investigative nature of tracking down documents. And I do care that the stories that I’ll eventually be learning about are truly for my ancestors.

In a way, though, I can do both. I don’t have to verify every ancestor before starting to learn the rich facts about the lives of ancestors I do verify. It’s starting to feel clearer. I’ll start researching the most recent generations, verifying facts and when I’ve worked my way back to someone particularly interesting, I can stop and start digging into their story, if I want.

Ah, that feels like a good plan.

Migration

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In the first six months of 2011, I read all seven books in Diana Gabaldon’s excellent Outlander series. The series starts in 1760s Scotland (primarily) and as the books progress, the protagonists migrate to the New World. The description of the boat trip from Scotland to the West Indies is harrowing indeed and it made me think about the brave (or is it desperate?) people who made that trip to the unknown New World by boat.

I was exploring one line of my family (the Adams family) on Ancestry.com today and came across families who migrated in the 1600s to Massachusetts from England. I can only imagine what that trip was like and what life for them upon arrival must have been like.

I know that American children learn about Pilgrims in grade school (I know I did), but when I think of these people as ancestors, it brings new meaning and wonderment to me. The first Thanksgiving was in 1621 and I’m looking at people who migrated in the late 1620s.

I find myself wanting to take a trip to Massachusetts to comb through records there and visit graveyards.

But first, I have to get organized. (And, really, I should verify that I actually am related to these folks.) A trip like that will be maximized by knowing just what I’m looking for and how to find it.

The excitement mounts!

Now what?

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Where next?

When I initially dipped my toe into the enticing pool of family history research, I just started clicking backward on familyhistory.org. As I mentioned in my last blog post, I was able to create over 120 pages of handwritten four-generaton Ancestry Charts.

I don’t know which data on these charts are correct. I’m sure there are mistakes, since I took what I read at face value and have very little in the way of verification, beyond some census forms I found. Rookie mistake, I know.

So now I’m trying to figure out where to go from here. When I think about sitting down and doing family history research, I feel overwhelmed. I have so many names on my charts. Where do I begin?

Some options

These are some of the options that occur to me. (Almost all the ancestors I know about were born in the United States.)

  • Try to find as many people as I can on censuses, starting with Chart 1 and moving forward (or back, as it were).
  • Study a period of time or an event and track my ancestors in it. For example, I could try to trace the involvement of all the ancestors I know about in the Civil War
  • Hone in on one particular line and learn as much about it as I can
  • Try to connect with relatives in discussion forums
  • Come up with some mysteries (I’m sure there are plenty to choose from) and try to solve them
  • Choose some software and transcribe all the handwritten data into it

I’ll keep you posted as I figure out what course of action to take. And, of course, I’m open to any advice anyone might have!

My quest to learn more about my family history

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It all started about ten years ago. I was on a trip to visit my parents (who live about 1,500 miles away from me) and my mother shared with me a print out of a family history narrative that a cousin of hers created some fifteen years before. On that same trip, my father’s sister shared some info from their side of the family. Through these documents, I found out that my family had connections with the early settlement of what is now New York City, as well (on the other side) with none other than Daniel Boone.

Back then I didn’t have a laptop, so I went to an internet cafe and started looking around on genealogy websites to see what I might learn. I was amazed at how easy it was to find out more. Granted, I wasn’t verifying any information, just taking it at face value, but I quickly learned that on both sides of my family we have deep American roots.

I joined Ancestry.com and consulted familyhistory.org and started creating handwritten Ancestry Charts. Before I knew it, I had over 120 pages of four-generation sheets.

Overwhelm rears its head

Then I started feeling overwhelmed about next steps. And then I got busy starting my business as a professional organizer. While the interest was still there, the time wasn’t so my family history research went on a hiatus.

But now I’m back. And I want to get started again. Ancestry.com looks different than it used to and I can tell there’s a whole lot more information available.

As I contemplate getting back into researching my family, I feel myself a little paralyzed by perfectionism. (This is actually unusual for me–I’m not much of a perfectionist.) I want to do this thing right and I’m not sure exactly where to go from here. I do know that I want to keep it organized so I can put my hands on information when I want it and to keep my mind from feeling muddled.

Where to start now?

That’s what this blog is going to be about: figuring out what to do, how to do it, how to organize it. I’ll also be sharing the discoveries, the mistakes and the joys that come along the way.

Thanks for reading and sharing this quest with me.