Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Mid-quarter progress report

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My strategy for focusing my genealogy efforts in 2014At 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!

Do you know The Story Trek?

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STRTK_LargeI have to admit I’d never heard of the television show The Story Trek before I attended the RootsTech conference. The host of the show, Todd Hansen, was one of the keynote speakers and he inspired us with the message that everyone  (and he means everyone) has an interesting story to tell.

On The Story Trek, Hansen goes door to door with a small television crew in a randomly selected city and neighborhood and asks whoever answers the door to tell his or her story for the television camera. Hansen is clearly gifted at extracting stories from people and the show is riveting. We saw excerpts during his enjoyable keynote (which you can watch here; it starts at the five-minute mark). That led me to locate full episodes of the show online. You can watch them on the BYUtv website or download the BYUtv app.

Two thumbs up from me. Enjoy!

5 things I learned at RootsTech

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5 things I learned from RootsTech

Family History Library

I’m still processing all I learned from last week’s RootsTech conference. But several main points are top of mind and I want to share them with you:

It’s all about story. Gathering names, birth dates and death dates is the backbone of genealogical research. But filling in the gaps with stories is what brings the research to life. That might mean interviewing relatives. But it also means searching for documents (like court and probate documents) that can provide valuable information to fill in the blanks.

Genealogists are generous. I heard a talk from Michael Cassara of DigiRoots who not only volunteers with Billion Graves to share information from the headstones of New York City’s Calvary Cemetery, he also buys old, identified photos from flea markets and tries to get them to the descendants of those pictured. How great is that? So inspirational. That kind of generosity inspired me to sign up as an obituaries indexer at FamilySearch.org.

It really is a small world. I met up with one of this blog’s readers (shout out to Lori Krause!), with whom I enjoyed sitting at the keynotes and having lunch daily. We’re both researching ancestors in tiny Vernon County, Missouri. (The population of the entire county is only twice the number of attendees at RootsTech.) I serendipitously sat next to a gentleman who had lived for 15 years in sparsely populated Franklin County, Washington, where my grandparents lived and where my grandfather published the newspaper. So it’s very likely he met my grandfather. It’s amazing to me that in a conference of 10,000 people, I met someone who had met my grandfather in the middle of nowhere. (Oh, and the above-mentioned Michael Cassara knows my husband’s first cousin, Joan Marcus. They both work in the Broadway theater world.)

A conference of 10,000 people doesn’t have to be overwhelming. RootsTech was so well organized that except when the keynote session ended the first day and I was in a crush of people, I never felt overwhelmed. There were no long lines. Registration was lightning fast. It was truly professional conference and I’d go back in a heartbeat.

I want to go back to the Family History Library. One evening, conference attendees were invited to the famed LDS Family History Library for research and pizza. Though the library staff were swamped, I was lucky enough to confer with professional genealogist Lyn Rasmusen who helped me confirm that my records on my great great grandfather, George Washington Adams, were correct. (I had stated worrying that I had him in the wrong regiment in the Civil War.) Just that little taste of the expertise and resources available at the library has me itching to go back!

Incidentally, the video archive of RootsTech 2014 talks is now available. There are 14 classes and 3 keynotes available for you to watch from the comfort of your home, free of charge. I’ll be watching the classes, since I didn’t see any of them live. The keynotes were all great. I encourage you to take advantage of this great resource!

 

Enjoy RootsTech from home

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rootstechlogoI’m in Salt Lake City at RootsTech 2014, a fantastic conference. My brain practically hurts from all the learning. And being around thousands of fellow genealogy enthusiasts is really energizing.

At the opening keynote, this lovely video debuted. I’ve enjoyed watching it since, and think you might like it too.

If you weren’t able to come, you can still benefit from some of the learning opportunities. Some of the sessions will be live streamed. Check out the live streaming schedule and perhaps you’ll be able to schedule some time today and tomorrow to watch live. You can read session descriptions first, so that you can see whether the streamed sessions will be of interest to you. To watch live, just go to the RootsTech homepage. Streaming videos are right there.

Some of the presentations will be archived. You’ll be able to find them here. Over at the RootsTech YouTube channel, you can watch interviews with various luminaries in the world of genealogy.

This year’s conference is large, but extremely well organized so it’s not overwhelming. Next year’s will be super-sized, since it’s being held Federation of Genealogical Societies conference. Mark your calendars for February 12 to 14, 2015.