Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Are you backing up your genealogy data?

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externalharddriveI have a good friend who recently lost most of her data on Dropbox. She was using Dropbox instead of her computer for storing work-related files (not genealogy related). She felt they were safe there. Until they weren’t. One day she realized that most of her files on Dropbox seemed to have vanished. She hesitated to contact them immediately, figuring it was some sort of temporary glitch or user error.

When she did contact Dropbox, they confirmed that the files and folders were gone. They offered no explanation. And they informed her that they delete files that haven’t been touched in 30 days. They offered her nothing in terms of assistance. And they did all that via email, declining to give my friend a telephone number for customer support. I was really shocked and disappointed.

Luckily, my friend uses Carbonite and her Dropbox account was included in the backup. So she was able to restore the files lost by Dropbox to her computer.

That got me thinking about how horrible I would feel if I lost my digital genealogy records (or most of my digital files, for that matter). I’ve developed a back-up scheme that makes me comfortable, but I’d be very interested to hear from you about how you ensure that your data are protected.

I store all my data on my hard drive. (I have a perhaps irrational fear of storing things only in the cloud.) My family tree info is in Reunion. My scanned files are in my Genealogy folder, filed by surname. I do have an Ancestry.com tree, but it’s a supplement to what I have on my hard drive.

I back up my hard drive every 15 minutes with CrashPlan Pro. When my MacBook is at my desk at home, I have it plugged into an external hard drive. I use Time Machine to back up hourly as well.

There are some things in my genealogy life that aren’t fully backed up. Some of my items on Evernote, for example, aren’t stored on my hard drive. This blog is backed up to Dropbox daily. (I felt better about that before my friend’s Dropbox experience.)

I feel secure with this system, but I fear it’s a false sense of security. I’d love to hear from you. How do you back up your genealogy data?

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

Creating a genealogy to-do list

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gentodolistsampleI know I have two big impediments when it comes to making progress with my genealogy research. One is that I often don’t know where to start in a particular session. The other is that I think I need a huge block of time and that huge block rarely comes.

But I know better. I am a big believer in grabbing snippets of time to complete discrete tasks. For me, this is true in life and in genealogy research. But my reluctance to start a short session still rears its head.

Yesterday, as I was pondering this situation, I came up with a strategy that might be helpful. I created a form for myself where I can separate tasks by the amount of time I think they’ll take. That way, when I find myself with 30 minutes to spend on family history research, I can scan the “30 minutes” section (or the “15 minutes or less” section) and hop right into a task. The form I created has seven sections: 15 minutes (or less), 30 minutes, one hour, two hours, half day, full day, and weekend.

Since I’m trying to focus on one branch of my family per quarter, I decided to make a separate list for each branch. That way, if I come across some leads for families I’m not working on this quarter, I can put them on the appropriate list, and when that quarter rolls around I’ll already have a task list to get me started.

If I manage to use this form consistently, it should serve a few purposes:

  • I’ll be able to jump right into my research without feeling overwhelmed
  • My sessions should be more focused and productive
  • I’ll research more frequently, because I won’t be waiting for large blocks of time to emerge
  • If I hit a dead end, I can go right back to my list to refocus

I can’t wait to give this a try. I’ve started with a short list for a couple of family branches. I’m going to figure out a way to include routine tasks on the list (like updating my progress tracker and making sure that all paper documents are also properly stored on my hard drive) so that they get done relatively painlessly. I think this will definitely be a work in progress.

In the next week or two, I’ll create a template for you to use in your research and include it in the Printables section of this site. I’m going to wait a little while to do so, so that I can refine it a bit, based on my use. (An excerpt of my one-day-old version of the form is what’s pictured with this post.) I’m thinking that I may drop the final two sections, since I want to include smaller tasks, not large projects, on the list. But I’ll use it awhile before deciding.

I’m curious: Do you find it hard to figure out where to start when you have time to do genealogy research? Or is that something peculiar to me?

What do you want to read about?

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Almost a year ago, I did a poll of Organize Your Family History readers to find out what types of articles are most useful to you. 101 people responded, which was fantastic.

Since then, readership has grown and I thought it might be time to check back with you. I’m interested in knowing what types of articles you would find interesting to read here. The poll is identical, but please do respond even if you responded a year ago.

Thank you so much! I am so grateful for the input I get from readers of this blog. You’ve helped me immeasurably and I want to write posts that help you in return.

Documenting the failures

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Document your research failures as well as successesHave you ever been pursuing leads on a thorny research problem and found the time just slipping away, without much progress made? I just experienced that. I was trying to fill in some blanks on an ancestor and actually managed to stay pretty focused, but two hours later, those blanks are still empty. I wouldn’t mind keeping going on this challenge, but I need to stop, because I have other things I need to accomplish this morning. Plus, I’m getting kind of frustrated.

It’s easy to spend a lot of time pursuing leads in genealogy research and feel like you’ve wasted your time. But I think there’s a sure-fire way to make the time spent more valuable. And that’s by recording what you’ve done and the results–even if the results are nil.

That’s where a research log comes in. I’ve not been diligent in keeping a research log, though I know that it can be very valuable. But my frustrating time this morning has me appreciating the effort of keeping a log, because I don’t want to repeat the unsuccessful searches (or if I do, I want to do so knowing that the searches have failed in the past).

When Springpad was around, I created a research tracker template that was included in the Family History Organizer notebook on Springpad. That form works with the way I think, so I’ve been continuing to use the template, only now it’s in Evernote. (Feel free to email me if you want me to send you the template–that’s the corner of today’s entry in the photo.) It’s simple and allows me to record the pertinent data without turning it into a big chore. I need to use it more diligently, after every research session, rather than waiting until days like today when logging my research feels absolutely imperative.

My way of keeping a research log is far from perfect. There are much more complete ways to do it–Thomas MacEntee offers an amazing research log template, it just doesn’t feel right for me. (I find it a little intimidating.)

If you’ve been contemplating keeping a research log, but got bogged down in trying to select the best format or you just weren’t sure how to do it, I’d suggest you let go of making it perfect (or even great) and just get into the habit of writing something down. Any information about your research session that you document at the end of the session is better than none!

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When you first join the list, I’ll send you a few emails to help you organize your family history. After that you’ll hear from me at the end of every month when I send an email with links to that month’s posts. And every now and then, I’ll let you know when I have something special to promote.