Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

It’s my 7th blogiversary!

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Seven years ago today, I published my first post on this blog. It was called My quest to learn more about my family history. In seven years, it’s been viewed a grand total of 62 times. (By contrast, Wednesday’s post on organizing learning resources has been viewed more than 800 times in two days.)

When I started the blog, I had no idea what would become of it. I knew I had the discipline and skill to blog, because I’d had an organizing blog for six years by then. I sensed that blogging about genealogy organizing would help me figure out how to integrate genealogy with my organizing business and would give me some accountability so that I would spend more on time on genealogy. I loved doing the research, I just always found things that seemed more important to do.

This blog has become than I ever imagined and I’m so grateful. Today seems like a good day to take stock of the many things I’m grateful to Organize Your Family History for bringing me.

How this blog has enhanced my life:

  • I’ve learned so much from my readers! I’ve been fortunate to have such engaged readers who provide lots of great advice and input in the comments. And everyone is so kind. Thank you!
  • Some readers have become in-person friends. I’ve done so meet ups at genealogy conferences and that’s always a treat.
  • I research more often. I’m confident that without this blog I would not research as much. My 30 x 30 challenges, in particular, really keep focused on the research.
  • I’m a better researcher. Because I’m researching more often, attending conferences, and benefiting from the wisdom of my readers, I’m most assuredly a better researcher than I was seven years ago and probably a better one than I would be today without the blog.
  • I’ve become acquainted with some well-known genealogists, which is always a treat. Through my How They Do It series, as well as Family Tree University webinars and just attending conferences, I’ve gotten to know some folks I admire
  • I’ve even made some money! I sell my Orderly Roots Guides and The Paperless Genealogy Guide (with Brooks Duncan) and I’ve earned some money through speaking, writing and consulting. I feel so fortunate for that!

I want to thank you, my readers, for coming along on this seven-year ride and for being such a big part of it. I can’t wait to find out what the upcoming year brings!

Letting research trip planning be easy

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As I’ve posted here, I’m planning a research trip to Kentucky later this month. I’m bound and determined to get the most out of this trip by doing a great job of planning for it in advance. My father’s paternal line lived in Kentucky for at least four generations so a lot of my people lived there, primarily in the 19th century (though some stayed there in the 20th century). I’m researching collateral lines, in addition to direct-line ancestors, so there are of things I can research there. What goes hand in hand with a lot of opportunities? Overwhelm.

Each day as part of my current 30 x 30 challenge, I’ve been working on planning the trip, but I’ve been a little scattered in my approach and it’s getting a little frustrating because I’m not really making decisions. I’m searching for clarity. And I think I found it.

Yesterday, my co-host Shannon Wilkinson and I recorded Episode 54 of our podcast Getting to Good Enough. (We’ll publish it on June 13.) The episode’s theme was Let It Be Easy, which is my mantra, as I’ve shared on this blog. As we were talking about this topic, I realized that I haven’t been letting this planning process be easy. Quite the opposite. Time for things to change.

So as soon as we finished recording, I pulled out some paper and started started brainstorming. I began with the all-important question, “Why do I want to take this trip?” Focusing on the answers to that question was so helpful. Four answers came to mind immediately and they gave my some instant clarity and direction. The answers were:

  1. To learn as much as I can about my 2nd great grandfather, George Washington Adams (1845-1939) (I’ve been fairly intensively studying him since I received and transcribed his 137-document civil war pension file)
  2. To solve mysteries
  3. To flesh out my family tree
  4. To expand my expertise

So now I’m focusing on identifying the blanks I can fill in for George Washing Adams, along with any information that could use more substantiation. I’m writing down mysteries, starting with those swirling around this second great grandfather (there are a few), and then I’ll look at how I might make tree stronger, bushier, and/or taller. I’d like to do a lot of that this week because next week I want to focus on scheduling the trip and contacting repositories.

I literally think the words “let it be easy” to myself probably four times a week. But for some reason, I hadn’t applied them to this trip. I’m feeling much better now that I have. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes!

Planning my Kentucky research trip

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One of my goals for 2019 is to take another research trip to Kentucky. My people were from western Kentucky: McLean, Hopkins and Muhlenberg counties, primarily. I’m really fortunate in that Kentucky has many wonderful repositories. I had a brief visit to the Kentucky Historical Society (or was it the State Archives?) in Frankfort when I was there on a bourbon trip with my husband in 2014. Earlier that year, I visited cemeteries and a library in McLean and Daviess counties.

On both those trips, I did do some preparation but I really floundered a bit when I got to the repositories. I don’t want to repeat that feeling of not knowing what to research. I went to a talk on Kentucky resources at the NGS conference, so I have a great list of places I could visit. And I went to a talk on organizing a research trip and have lots of great logistical ideas in terms of the travel.

Here’s what I’m struggling with today: What’s a better way to go about planning what I want to find out? It seems like I have a couple of options:

  • Come up with research questions and then figure out which respositories might have the answers
  • Research the repositories’ holdings and then figure out what I records I need from each of the repositories

My gut tells me to do the former. Figure out my burning questions and seek out the answers that I can’t find online. But I’m not sure.

These are the places I’m thinking I’ll go:

  • Kentucky State Archives (Frankfort)
  • Martin F. Schmidt Research Library at the Kentucky Historical Society (Frankfort)
  • Office of Vital Statistics (Frankfort)
  • Filson Historical Society (Louisville) [I made a connection with a curator there when I was at NGS!]
  • Kentucky Room of the Daviess County Public Library (Owensboro)
  • Western Kentucky University Manuscripts and Folklife Archives (Bowling Green)
  • McLean County Courthouse (Calhoun)
  • Various cemeteries in McLean County

That’s kind of a daunting (but exciting!) list.

I’d love to hear comments from any of you who are familiar with Kentucky research or have advice about planning my trip, which I’m hoping to take in late June. If there’s an approach you recommend for preparing or if there are places you’d suggest I go, I’m all ears!

 

 

Census Predictor: What a terrific idea!

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Just three more years until the 1950 census is released to the public! I bet you’re as excited about it as I am. But do you know where your family members lived in 1950? In the mid-twentieth century, people started moving around more, rather than living around extended family for decades on end. I suspect that will make census research a little more difficult for genealogists. (Here’s an article from the Oxford Encyclpedia of American Social History on 20th-century internal migration, if you’re interested.)

OYFH reader Christy Underwood, who writes the blog Shaking My Family Tree, gave thought to how future genealogists might find her and her family in the more recent censuses. She created a Census Predictor form, which she has filled out for her family members who were alive since 1950. She’s posting them on her blog as a roadmap for researchers who follow her.

She explains the concept here, but the idea is that she creates a table in Word for each family member, with rows for each census year, providing the state, county, city and address of the person at the time. She also includes a cell for notes.

Here’s Christy’s post with her Census Predictor for herself. (That’s a snippet at the top of this post.)

I think this is genius. Wouldn’t it be great if we all did it? I’m planning to give it a try as soon as I finish my current paper-purging project (which is coming along quite nicely).

Are you game for creating census predictors for your family? Are you already doing something similar? I’d love to hear about it!

Christy, thank you for inventing the Census Predictor and sharing it with the world on your blog. And thank you for giving me the green light to write about it here!