Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Are you a perfectionist?

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As a professional organizer, I encounter perfectionism a lot. Many, if not most, of my clients are perfectionists. What I’ve seen over the years is that their perfectionism gets in the way of their ability to organize, because they either don’t feel they know enough to start, or they get discouraged because things aren’t going perfectly and stop. Then they call in reinforcements (in the form of me and/or my team).

I’ve been thinking about perfectionism a lot because I’ve started a podcast, with my friend and life coach Shannon Wilkinson, called Getting to Good Enough. In the weekly podcast, we discuss perfectionism and how it can get in the way of accomplishing the things you want do. We provide lots of suggestions for overcoming perfectionism so you more of what you love (like genealogy). Shannon is a newer genealogist and was with me at RootsTech this year–I expect there will be at least one genealogy-related episode!

I think many genealogists who find themselves surrounded by paper might be perfectionists. Some of them may be searching before the perfect system before they’ll start organizing and when it doesn’t appear (because there is no such think as a perfect genealogy organizing system), things pile up until they’re overwhelmed.

Also, some genealogists may avoid doing source citations because creating a perfect source citation so feels challenging  they don’t do it at all or decide they’ll do it later. (That’s a feeling I could relate to at the very beginning of my genealogy life.) Genealogy research logs might also fall into the category of things that perfectionist genealogists may avoid doing for fear of doing it wrong. (That’s why I’m satisfied with my “good enough” research log.)

If you can relate to these things, you might want to listen to the podcast! Go to our website, Getting to Good Enough, to listen to individual episodes or click on the iTunes link to subscribe to the podcast. You can also subscribe by email, if you’d like. (Scroll to the website’s footer for that sign up.)

Shannon and I have had a great time recording the episodes and we hope that you find them helpful and fun. It’s a fun new adventure for us!

 

My first article in Family Tree Magazine!

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I’m excited to report that an article I wrote is published in the current (July/August 2018) edition of Family Tree Magazine! It’s called Genealogy Organization Secrets the Pros Know and it’s based on the interviews I did for the What the Pros Know: Genealogy Organizing Tips workshop I hosted for Family Tree University earlier this year.

The expert sources for the article are Thomas MacEntee, Joshua Taylor, Drew Smith, and Denise Levenick. I’m so grateful to them for talking with me.

For ten years before I started my organizing business in 2005, I was a freelance pet writer. I wrote primarily for newspapers and magazines, though in the latter years I wrote books. (You can check out my titles at Amazon.)

So magazine writing is not new for me, but I have to admit it was a thrill to have a genealogy article appear under my byline in a major national magazine. And note the optimism in this post’s title…I’m hoping there will be more!

I was able to read the article through this link, though it may be for premium members only. You can purchase and download the whole digital edition of the magazine here.

While it’s nice to see digital version on the website, I’m looking forward to holding the physical magazine in my hands. (Never mind that usually prefer digital documents to paper. This is different!)

What the Pros Know: Research Secrets

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What the Pros Know: Research Secrets of the ProsI’m so excited to be hosting a second What the Pros Know workshop for Family Tree University. This one is called What the Pros Know: Research Secrets of the Pros. It will run June 11 to 17. (Back in January I hosted What the Pros Know: Genealogy Organizing Tips.)

In the workshop I interview four prominent genealogy experts, each on a different aspect of research. The experts have been asked to share secrets from their own genealogy research.

The audio interviews (which together are one hour) play behind a slide deck that you can see while listening. During the week of the workshop, participants will have access to an online discussion forum and for three hours the evening of June 14, I’ll be on hand live to answer questions on the forum.

Here are the experts for this go-around and their topics:

As I write this, I’ve completed three of the four interviews and they’ve been fun and, I think, really interesting. I’m pumped up to explore the resources I’ve learned about.

You can sign up for the workshop, which costs $59.99 here. I hope to see you on the discussion forums!

 

Select NGS conference sessions available for livestream

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I was hoping to attend the 2018 National Genealogical Society conference, which is being held 2 to 5 May 2018 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but I’m not going to be able to. However, I have the option (as do you!) of watching a few of the classes via livestream.  Registration is now open for livestreaming of ten of the 175 lectures being offered.

The sessions being streamed are offered on Friday, May 3 and Saturday, May 4. Friday’s five sessions focus on DNA, African-American research, and Loyalists. Saturday’s five livestreams focus on BCG Skillbuilding. For a complete list of the sessions being livestreamed, go to the Livestream page for the conference.

You can buy a one-day pass for either day for $95 or a two-day pass for $149. If you want to watch the sessions live, you must register by May 2. From May 3 to 5, you can purchase on-demand viewing of the ten sessions for that price. (After that, you can purchase a video pass for all ten but the price goes up to $279.) The sessions remain available to you to view for a year.

Livestream registrants receive a copy of the electronic syllabus for the whole conference. For those registrants who miss the live broadcast, the session will be available on demand about 48 hours after the broadcast.

Click here to learn more and sign up.

P.S. If you’re planning attend the conference but haven’t registered yet, be aware that online registration ends on April 20!