Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Census aid

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Sometimes it’s the little things that can make a big difference.

I created a little two-column chart that I put up on my bulletin board. In the left-hand column is a census year for each of the censuses from 1790 to 1940. In the right-hand column is the corresponding ordinal number. So 1940 is Sixteenth, 1930 is Thirteenth and so forth.

If you’ve looked at a U.S. census, you know that the year of the census is in tiny letters but which census it is (Fifteenth, Fourtheenth, etc.) is in big letters. I can’t tell you how much squinting this little chart has prevented.

I love it when I can do one little thing to make my life easier.

In case you’re interested in printing one out for yourself, I attach a link here to a pdf of my chart: census ordinal numbers. I hope you find it helpful!

How I organize my family history research

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I don’t think I’ve written here about how this professional organizer actually organizes her genealogy stuff. In case you’re curious, I thought I’d tell you about it.

But first, 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 set up my filing system more than a dozen years ago, based on suggestions I found back then on familysearch.org. Files are color coded, with one color for each of my grandparents. I have a hanging file folder for each surname; the file’s color indicates which grandparent’s line that surname falls into. Within the hanging file folders, I have manila folders for each couple I’ve researched, with the husband and wife’s names and birth/death dates written on the label. Each file’s label is color coded to indicate the grandparent’s line.

When I print out a document, I place it in the appropriate folder. Some documents that might logically fall into more than one folder (for example, a census in which an ancestor was a child would belong in the folder she shares with her husband, but, assuming she lived with her parents, it would also fall into their folder). For those, I’ve decided to place the document in the folder of the household head.

One document I’ve created to keep track of where I stand is a records index for each couple that I fill out by hand. It lists which censuses the pair have been found on (individually or together), as well as birth certificates, death certificates and other vital records, military records, burial records etc. I just place an X when I’ve found something and I tell at a glance what’s inside the folder. This takes a little keeping up ad I’m not 100 percent there, but it’s a fairly new innovation for me, and I’m liking it.

I also have a hanging file folder for documents that have been given me by other family members that I’m working on verifying. And I have a hanging file folder that contains files with blank forms (like my index and the census extraction forms) and a thick file that contains the hand-written four-generation ancestral charts I created ten or more years ago. These provide valuable clues as I work toward verifying all the data. In the very front, I keep notebooks where I’ve jotted some handwritten notes through the years.

I keep all these files in an Elfa rolling file cart, which has two mesh drawers in it. In the top, shallow drawer I keep extra labels. In the deeper bottom drawer I keep some family photos and a family history book I just brought back from my recent trip to visit family, as well as the CDs I’ve purchased from Family Tree.

Speaking of Family Tree, I’m a big fan of Family Tree Magazine, as well as the magazine of the National Genealogical Society. I keep those in magazine holders in the closet in which my file cart resides when I’m not using it. I have two holders: one for magazines I’ve read and am keeping for reference, and one for magazines I’ve not yet read.

As I’ve mentioned before, all the data I have verified is entered into Reunion software on my Mac, which syncs with an app on my iPhone. I always enter sources when I enter any data into the software.

Between the paper and the software, I can pretty well find what I want when I want it. That’s my definition of organized. I have to be careful to file anything I print out immediately (there’s nothing worse than a document you need hiding in a “to file” file). I think the confidence I feel in my organizational system, coupled with the fact that I’m carefully sourcing my data, has helped me to keep from feeling overwhelmed by my family history research.  So far, so good!

How I organize my research has evolved a great deal since 2012 when I wrote this post. In 2021 I published an Orderly Roots Guide called How I Do It: A Professional Organizer’s Genealogy Workflow that provides detailed information on how I organize my own genealogy research. It is available for $19.99.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained

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Index at Grandview Cemetery showing Nebergalls

The Nebergalls on the cemetery index

As I mentioned in last Thursday’s post, I took a little detour on my way from Walla Walla, Wash., where I was visiting my parents, back to Portland, Ore., where I would get my flight home to St. Louis. My husband, Barry, and I went to La Grande, Ore., to visit the Grandview Cemetery.

I’d read on a US GenNet cemetery index that my great great great grandfather, Thomas Washington Nebergall, was buried at the Grandview Cemetery, in Block 113, Lot 1, Space 5. His next of kin was listed as his wife, Miriam Van Bibber Nebergall, which matched my records. So I figured that was my guy and that a visit to the cemetery might provide me with some verified information about him (of which I have precious little).

We drove the winding roads through the Blue Mountains to La Grande (part of the time we were actually on the Oregon Trail) and managed to find the small cemetery. We found Thomas’s name in an index (pictured), in a big display case with a map. But when we went to Block 113, there was a lot of open grass and only one Nebergall grave stone, despite there being five Nebergalls on the index in that block.

We searched in vain in the hot sun for more Nebergalls and before giving up I telephoned the cemetery office. The gentleman there gave me the only explanation I’d been able to think of, which is that no grave stones were ever made for them. My hopes for finding more info about my grandfather’s great grandfather at the cemetery were dashed.

I was disappointed, but, as Barry reminded me, it’s just all part of the adventure. The search in and of itself is fun (though it’s made more sweet by some great discoveries). I’m confident that eventually I’ll get the information I seek. And I’m not letting it discourage me from looking at more cemeteries! I have many ancestors buried in the state of Missouri, so I expect some road trips before too long.

Quiz your relatives

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I’m just wrapping up my visit with my parents and I’m kicking myself for not having conversations with them sooner about family history and lore. (I wish I had done it when I first started dabbling in genealogy history some ten years ago.)

Either my family just doesn’t talk about this stuff a lot (we didn’t when I was a kid, I don’t think), or my octogenarian parents just don’t remember much. In any case, my fact-finding mission didn’t reveal a lot of facts. However, I did go through a box of old photos my mother had inherited from her mother. Only a few had any kind of labels on them (and my mom didn’t recognize most of those pictured), but there were some obituaries and other potentially valuable documents among the photos, which gave me a little thrill.

My aunt lent me a family history that had been published decades ago and I look forward to going through it and trying to verify the information contained in it. While it doesn’t seem to list sources, it will provide valuable clues.

Today, as we drive from Walla Walla, Wash. (where my parents live) to Portland, Ore., we’re going make a detour through LaGrande, Ore, where my great great great grandfather is purported to be buried. I’ll report on that next week.

My big takeaway for you is that even if your interest in family history is only slight, seek out your older relatives and ask them to tell you family stories. And take a few notes. If you end up doing genealogy history, those conversations might provide you with some valuable clues or explanations for what you find in your research.