Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Research your ancestors on their special days

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April 19 has always been a special day for me. It’s the birthday of my grandmother (Beatrix Flournoy Rasco Adams, 19 Apr 1907 to 23 May 1987) and it’s also my brother’s birthday. He turned 60 yesterday!

Taking note of April 19 reminded me of the great method of deciding what to research shared by Laura Aanenson on the Genealogy Research Loggers Facebook group last year. I blogged about it on January 20, 2017, in a post called Using a calendar to introduce variety into your research. (Laura’s blog is where2look4ancestors.)

In a nutshell, in 2017 Laura was using the calendar function in Family Tree Maker to help her decide to research every day. Each day, the names of those ancestors who were born or married or who died on that day came up on the calendar.  She would choose her research subject from that list.

I use Reunion, which also has a calendar function, but a commenter, Kim, shared the idea of using the Reminders feature in Reunion for the same purpose. I hadn’t even noticed the the Reminders feature. Since I’m pretty focused on my Adams line, I haven’t adopted this procedure. But I love the idea.

If you find this idea intriguing, I encourage you to read that post and to take in the comments as well. Thank you, Laura. This is such a great idea!

2018 RootsTech livestream schedule

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I’m excited that I’m attending RootsTech, but for those who can’t make it, RootsTech is livestreaming a small selection of the keynotes and breakout sessions at next week’s conference.

Here’s the schedule. The sessions will be streamed live on the RootsTech homepage and then afterward recordings will be posted on the website for a limited time.

Visit the Livestream page on the RootsTech website for descriptions of each of these sessions.

Wednesday, February 28

9:30 a.m.–10:30 a.m. | Family History in 5 Minutes a Day
Speaker: Deborah Gamble

11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. | DNA–One Family, One World
Speaker: David Nicholson

1:30 p.m.–2:30 p.m. | Organizing and Preserving Photograph Collections
Speaker: Ari Wilkins

3:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. | Finding the Answers: The Basics of WWII Research
Speaker: Jennifer Holik

4:30 a.m.–5:30 a.m. | Wednesday General Session and Innovation Showcase
Speaker: Steve Rockwood, CEO of FamilySearch International

Thursday, March 1

8:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m. | Thursday General Session
Speaker: Brandon Stanton, Humans of New York

11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. | MyHeritage DNA 101: From Test to Results
Speaker: Yaniv Erlich

1:30 p.m.–2:30 p.m. | Google Photos: Collect, Organize, Preserve, and Share
Speaker: Michelle Goodrum

3:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. | Unlocking Roman Catholic Records
Speaker: Brian Donovan

4:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m. | A Gift of Life: Who’s Writing Your Story?
Speaker: Deborah Abbott

Friday, March 2

8:30 a.m.–9:30 a.m. | Friday General Session
Speaker: Scott Hamilton

11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. | findmypast’s British and Irish Hidden Gems
Speaker: Myko Clelland

1:30 p.m.–2:30 p.m. | Finding the Right DNA Test for You
Speaker: Jim Brewster

3:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. | How Not to Leave Your Genealogy Behind
Speakers: Amy Johnson Crow and Curt Witcher

4:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m. | Finding Elusive Records at FamilySearch
Speaker: Robert Kehrer

Saturday, March 3

8:30 a.m.–9:30 a.m. | Saturday General Session
Speakers: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Natalia Lafourcade

11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. | Civil Registration Indexes of England and Wales
Speaker: Audrey Collins

1:30 p.m.–2:30 p.m. | Advancing Your Genealogy Research with DNA
Speaker: Anna Swayne

3:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. | Pain in the Access: More Web for Your Genealogy
Speaker: Curt Witcher

That’s a lot of free information available to you! I heartily encourage to attend as many of these talks as you can, from the comfort of your computer, tablet or phone. In my experience, RootsTech presentations are top notch.

 

A fun way to link family history with the Olympics

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Ancestor Olympics!I was contacted by Ann Golightly Jeffs of the crafty blog Ivory Bloom about the free printables she’s created in honor of the Olympics. They’re Ancestor Cards, like baseball cards, that you can download and then add your ancestors’ names and birth/death dates and places and even their pictures. (You can do the adding either in software or by hand, after printing.) The idea is that you root in the Olympics for the countries your ancestors are from.

The blog post is full of advice on ways to incorporate family history into the Olympic celebrations (including making Olympic torches!). I think if you have kids or grandkids, it would be a great way to teach them an appreciation for their roots.

Included among the printables is a medal count chart, which would be a fun way to see ancestors competing against one another.

I think these are great ideas. I’m definitely in favor of anything that helps promote an appreciation of family history!

Raise your hand if you’re going to RootsTech!

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RootsTech 2018 is a little later than usual (February 28 to March 2) and I’ve just today started to focus on it. I deleted last year’s app on my so that I could download this year’s version. Turns out, if I’d read this blog post, titled 7 Ways the Mobile App Will Enhance Your RootsTech Experience I would have realized that all had to do was open the 2017 app, tap Exit to Show List, and select RootsTech 2018.

The app really is robust, allowing you to access information about conference sessions, exhibitors, schedules and more in a variety of ways. I’m going to make sure I budget some time in advance of the conference to go through it and put sessions on the app’s schedule so I’m not feeling stressed while at the conference.

Apparently 15,000 attendees are expected at this year’s conference to learn from their choice of 300 sessions and 200 exhibitors. I can’t believe I can attend a conference of that scope and not feel completely overwhelmed. It really is very well organized. One thing I’ve learned is to schedule down time and give myself permission to skip a conference session if I’m feeling exhausted. (I find that being around so many people can be draining.) If you’re attending for the first time you might want to check out this RootsTech blog post, A Survival Guide to RootsTech.

In years past I’ve had a great time meeting readers of this blog at RootsTech. If you’re going and you’d like to say hi in person, just leave a note in the comments and we’ll figure that out. I hope to meet some of you in person this year!