Organize Your Family History

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Search Results for: 30 x 30 challenge

Getting started again after a hiatus

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One of the things I love about doing daily genealogy research is that I never lose the thread of my research. I jot down next steps in my research log and then each morning I know just what to work on. No agonizing over what to research.

That’s how it’s supposed to work and how it does work when I’m in my groove. But, as I mentioned in a post earlier this week, I’ve done virtually no research for about a month. None. It makes me sad and it’s why I’m starting a 30 x 30 challenge on April 1.

Today I had a sliver of time and some motivation to get back in the saddle. But I faced a conundrum about what to work on. Most recently, I’d been working on eradicating the paper backlog I uncovered. But I’m away from home at the moment so I physically couldn’t do that.

It’s amazing to my how paralyzing the question, “What should I work on?” is. It can stop me in my tracks.

So I started thinking about the various strategies I could employ in figuring out what to work on today:

  • I could look at my research log to see where I left off.
  • I could work on processing my backlog of downloaded documents. (A small one has built up in recent months.)
  • I could open up my Source Documentation Checklist and pick up where I left off.
  • I could look at my follow-up notes, which I keep in notebooks by surname in Evernote.
  • I could choose an ancestor (any ancestor) and see what research questions I have about him/her and get started there.
  • I could look in my family-tree software (I use Reunion) and see if any of my families had a significant event today and work on them. (I wrote about that method here.)
  • If I were at home, I could play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and close my eyes and grab a pin on my ancestor map, then do some research on that ancestor. (That’s my ancestor map in the photo.)

Here’s the thing: it doesn’t really matter what I start working on as long as I re-engage with my research. The important thing is that I get the ball rolling and work on something. (Anything, really.) As my co-host Shannon Wilkinson and I discuss on our podcast Getting to Good Enough, perfectionism can really get in the way of doing what you love!

What I ended up doing was working on my backlog of downloaded documents, which allowed me to jump right in and make progress. It felt great!

Giving myself permission to be unfocused

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It's okay to be unfocused sometimesI’ve been so focused on being focused that my brain rebelled this weekend. We had a foot of snow here in St. Louis and I wasn’t going anywhere. That meant I could spend more time than usual on my genealogy research. But I just couldn’t focus. I was all over the place.

I blogged last week about how my research log keeps me focused. This morning, I discovered that I was so scattered that I didn’t even write in my log yesterday! I was able to recall most of what I did and create a log entry after the fact. But today I was equally scattered in my session.

And you know what? I’ve decided that’s okay. I did write my next steps in my log and when I get back to it tomorrow morning (which will by necessity have to be a short session), I’m hoping to have more focus. I think it was somewhat beneficial for me to clamber all over my family tree this weekend. Here’s why:

  • I’d been starting to get frustrated at my inability to find some specific documents that would help prove that a grave marker I found on Find a Grave indeed belongs to my family members. Walls (brick or otherwise) aren’t fun.
  • I started thinking about other resources I have in my possession that would be helpful to review (rather than focusing on my online research).
  • I certainly didn’t suffer from tunnel vision this weekend!
  • I decided to give Trello a try for some genealogy to-dos, inspired by comments on the 30 x 30 challenge post from reader Jerry Hereford. (More on that when I’m able to give it a more focused try.)
  • It’s always good when I’m placed in the shoes of people who are asking for my organizing help (genealogy or otherwise). If you sometimes feel unfocused, please know that I can empathize!

So instead of considering my hours of genealogy research this weekend unproductive, I’m going to embrace my lack of focus. I’ll note the ideas and clues sparked by my trips down rabbit holes and let them inspire future research. I’m not going to beat myself up. I’ll just try get back to my focused self tomorrow.

Photo by Robin Spielmann on Unsplash

How my research log keeps me focused

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Ever since I got serious about genealogy in 2012, I’ve struggled with keeping a research log. (Before that, I didn’t even consider keeping one.) In March 2017, after a few unsuccessful attempts at other formats, I settled on keeping my research log in Evernote with a simple note per session where I take free-form notes and always end the note with next steps. The notes are kept in a notebook by year. In April 2017, I blogged in detail about my informal research log. And in March 2017, I blogged about why keeping a research log is important. (If you click on that link, be sure and read the comments, which are really insightful.)

I’m in the middle of a 30 x 30 challenge and therefore researching daily in short sessions. I’m proud that there is a note for each day this month in my 2019 Research Log notebook. One benefit I’m seeing of my research log is that it’s keeping me focused and saving me time. And I appreciate that!

I always write next steps at the bottom of each entry. (True confession: Sometimes, during unproductive sessions, I just copy and paste the next steps from the previous day.) That means that when I sit down to research, all I have to do is pull up the previous day’s session notes and I know exactly what to work on. No more paralysis with the question “What should I work on today?”

Also, writing down what I’m doing seems to keep on task. I try to write as I go with frequent notes in my log each session. Sometimes, though, I end up doing a brain dump at the end of the session. Writing down what I’m doing or have done, keeps my research question top of mind.

When I come across a clue that I want to explore in the future (about a different research question or a different family than the one I’m researching today), I write it down in a follow up folder. I keep follow folders by surname and check them every now and then.

Staying focused is so hard in genealogy research with so many wonderful things to explore and so many temptations put right in front of us. A research log–in concert with follow-up folders to jot down future tasks–is my secret weapon for staying focused. My research log is far from perfect. But it’s consistent and, I’m finding, very helpful.

I have a Facebook group called Genealogy Research Loggers. Please join if you’re interested in research logs!

It’s my 6th blogiversary!

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Today is the sixth anniversary of my first post on Organize Your Family History. I started the blog as a way to marry my love for organizing with my love for genealogy. It’s grown past my expectations (though to be honest, I hadn’t spent much time on expectations). And I’ve grown as a genealogist along the way.

In my first four blogiversary posts, I cited some statistics about the blog but last year I realized that has to be pretty boring to anybody but me. Last year I created a blogiversary post about how I’d evolved as a genealogist since starting the blog. I re-read that post this morning and really liked it. So I decided to update it, rather than creating a new blogiversary post from scratch.

One of the great things about having a blog is that your history is at your disposal. So here’s my evolution as a genealogist over the last six years, as documented on this blog:

  • I’m almost completely paperless. On August 12, 2012, I wrote, “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.” Wow. Nowadays I almost never print anything out and the documents are beautifully organized on my computer. I’ve developed an awesome digital workflow that works really well for me. (In October 2017, I added a helpful post called How I process a downloaded document.) And I’ve even coauthored (with scanning guru Brooks Duncan) The Paperless Genealogy Guide. What a difference six years makes!
  • I now understand that researching away from my desk can be really beneficial. Six years ago, all my research was done online, from my desk. And that was great. But now I’ve gone on some great research trips, both library trips and cemetery trips. (I need to start doing courthouse trips!) They enhance my research so much. Trips that take me to where my ancestors lived make me feel closer to them. I’m planning a trip to Kentucky this fall where I hope to visit cemeteries, libraries, courthouses and an archive. Can’t wait!
  • I’m finally keeping a research log. In 2012 I wrote about keeping a research log. I had the best of intentions, but it didn’t stick. At least once a year, I would resolve to try again. And I would fail. At the end of 2016, I set a goal of creating a genealogy research log habit in 2017 and I set up a Facebook group for those who also want to create the habit, Genealogy Research Loggers. (Feel free to join us; it’s a pretty quiet group.) I’m proud to say that I’ve kept up the habit! Part of my success is the simplicity of the log I keep. But it’s doing its job of keeping me focused and helping me remember what I’ve researched and where I am in my research. It’s definitely worth the effort (and by now it feels like almost no effort)!
  • I’m researching more frequently. Thanks to the 30 x 30 challenges I started in 2015 (in which I challenge myself and my readers to do 30 minutes of genealogy research each day for 30 days), I’m getting a lot more research done. And since I have a research log in which I write next steps, I don’t have the barrier of deciding what to work on when I sit down to start a research session. The result is more frequent researching, though the sessions may be shorter. I actually researched every day from August 1, 2017 until I went to RootsTech at the end of February 2018! In the process, I learned that daily research can be really valuable. It keeps my head in the game and keeps genealogy top of mind.
  • I’m more focused. One of the challenges I find with genealogy research is that as the family tree grows, there are so many opportunities to explore new things (or shiny objects). At the beginning of 2014, I created a scheme in which I would focus on one family line (that is the ancestors of one grandparent) each quarter. That helped me maintain some focus. In 2017, I decided I would spend the whole year focused on one line, my paternal grandfather’s line. I imagine that might sound boring to some, but I love it! It happens that my grandfather’s grandfather has a 138-document Civil War pension file that is rich with information and offers lots of clues to explore. I transcribed the whole thing and entered data from it into Reunion and it became the basis for much exploration of his descendants. I’ve stuck with the Adams family line for the past year but plan to shift my focus to my father’s maternal line, the Rascos, at the beginning of July.
  • I started researching my collateral lines extensively. In 2012, I was focused solely on my direct lines. Then I started adding children from censuses to my tree. But in the past year I did some really enjoyable deep dives into some of my collateral lines. (I was going to deep that I worried I was researching too far out on the branches of my tree.) I let go of that worry and now have an appreciation for how recording every bit of information can pay huge dividends later.
  • I went from a conference attendee to a conference speaker! I love conferences, especially genealogy conferences. Since 2013, I’ve been to more than a dozen genealogy conferences, ranging from smaller local or regional conferences to RootsTech, which draws some 10,000 to 20,000 attendees. In February 2017 I was thrilled to be a presenter at RootsTech. I co-presented, with Brooks Duncan (my Paperless Genealogy Guide co-writer), a session called Go Paperless: Streamline and Digitize Your Research. In October 2017, I did a talk on going paperless at the St. Louis Genealogy Conference and am slated to speak there again in October 2018. If you have any topics you’d like to hear my speak about at a conference, feel free to suggest them!
  • I collaborated with Family Tree University and Family Tree Magazine. Thanks to my popular How They Do It series, I was asked by Family Tree University to create and host a What the Pros Know: Genealogy Organizing Tips in January 2018. And the editor of Family Tree Magazine asked me to create a feature article from the interviews. Then I was asked to host a second What the Pros Know workshop, this one on Research Secrets of the Pros. These have been fun to do and I’m grateful for the exposure!

Bloggers are really fortunate in that reading blog archives can bring to mind long-forgotten memories. I’ve enjoyed putting together this post to remind me how far I’ve come in the last six years. I want to thank you for reading the blog and give thanks those of you who comment and especially those I’ve met in person. This blog has enhanced my life and I’m very grateful!