Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

How do you organize your genealogy data?

By 12 Comments

newpollI was perusing the Facebook group The Organized Genealogist today and was struck by the number of people who organize their genealogy data in binders. I wrote about the Folders vs Binders debate a couple of years and I fall soundly on the side of file folders over binders. The truth of the matter, though, is that these days I’m dealing almost exclusively with electronic files, so that particular debate is moot for me.

But it started me wondering how my readers organize their data. So I created a little poll. Would you please vote so I can see how you guys like to organize? Feel free to select as many answers as appropriate. And also, feel free to elaborate in the blog post’s comments.

Finally, there are some terrific comments in the poll itself. Click on Comments in the View Results page. All the commenters are right–it’s not about one method over another, it’s about how we mix it up!

OYFH’s top five posts

By 4 Comments

The readership of this blog had grown steadily over its three years of existence, so today I thought I’d list the five most-read blog posts in the event that new readers haven’t discovered them. Combined, these posts have been read more than 32,000 times. Have you read them yet?

Foil can make hard-to-read gravestones legible

Reading hard-to-read gravestones. I outline the aluminum foil trick I used to make illegible gravestones readable, like magic. With over 16,000 pageviews, this is my most-read post hands down.

This simple spreadsheet helps me keep an eye on who needs researching.Tracking progress. I created a spreadsheet that allows me to tell at a glance which important records I’ve identified for each direct-line ancestor and which I still need to track down.

My genealogy file cartAre you organized enough? In this popular post, I bring my experience as a professional organizer to the question, “What does being organized really mean?” And then I take you step by step through the process of becoming organized enough.

Top five OYFH postsFree family fan chart. Thank you, Google, for making this post so popular.  Martha Stewart did a post a few years ago on building a family tree that offers a free, downloadable family fan chart. This posts links to it. And that link is still live.

Are yoAre you backing up your genealogy data?u backing up your genealogy data?  I advocate a belt-and-suspenders approach to back up. In this post, I relay the sad story of a friend whose (non-genealogy) files were deleted by Dropbox.

 

Time-management wisdom from Joshua Taylor

By 13 Comments

djoshuataylorcropI’m a professional organizer and I routinely give time-management advice to my clients who want it. But, as regular readers of this blog know, managing my genealogy research time is a work in progress for me. I struggle with staying focused, knowing what to work on and combating overwhelm.

That changed a little on Saturday. I was fortunate to be in the audience at the Genealogy Society of Southern Illinois’s annual conference. The speaker was D. Joshua Taylor, professional genealogist and truly organized person. Joshua has been doing genealogy research since he was 10 years old and had his first professional clients while he was in high school. He is the president of the Federation of Genealogical Societies and the director of family history for FindMyPast.com. He is paid to do genealogy research for others, but he still works on his own genealogy research on a regular basis.

Joshua gave four talks at the GSSI conference, all of them terrific. He’s clearly a very thorough researcher; I was very impressed with the tenacity that came through in his talks. He leaves no stone unturned in his research.

While all four talks were really valuable, one talk that really blew me away. It was The Modern Genealogist: Timesaving Tips for Every Researcher, in which he outlined how he stays happy and focused while exploring his roots. Here were my big takeaways:

  • He works on only 1 to 3 projects/problems at a time, along 3 to 5 extended projects (brick walls).
  • If he comes across something else he wants to check out, he just adds it to his project list to work on in the future. (The discipline of that amazes me.)
  • For each research project, he sets a manageable goal and commits to a finished product, putting the research into some sort of meaningful form. I love that he knows what success looks like, in advance.
  • He plans each research session before he starts.
  • He writes a mini-research report for each research session, even when he’s doing it for his own research.
  • He reviews his research log every month or two to see what he’s missed and what he can apply to other families.

One benefit to working on just a few projects at a time, he said, is that you have a fighting chance of completing them. “I would rather leave behind 3 to 5 completed projects than 50 started, but not completed, projects,” he said. I was impressed that such a young man (I think he’s about 30, if that) thinks about his legacy–that’s probably a byproduct of being a genealogist, isn’t it?

When I got home from the conference, I immediately identified the three projects I’m allowing myself to focus on at this time. It’s been absolutely liberating–I don’t have to try to figure out what to work, which makes it much easier to get started. I will keep you posted how this all plays out, but I’m feeling very good about following Joshua’s excellent advice.

One other mind-blowing revelation at the conference was that Joshua and I are cousins. I’m going to repeat that, because it’s so amazing. Joshua and I are cousins. Our common ancestors are my third great grandparents, Joseph Price (1820-1904) and Mary Puffenbarger (1823-1896). (It’s Mary’s grave that I used aluminum foil to read in my blog post Reading hard-to-read gravestones.) How did I discover that? Like many good genealogy lecturers, Joshua used his own research in examples. In his very first talk of the day, he mentioned Joseph and Mary, much to my excitement. Joseph Price is one of Joshua’s brick walls, so it’s conceivable that I might, at some point, be able to give him a hand. That would be a dream come true!

Ten organizing truths

By 2 Comments

Ten organizing truthsI am celebrating the 10th anniversary of Peace of Mind Organizing®, my organizing business, this month. I wrote an article for my monthly newsletter yesterday that listed ten organizing principles I’ve come to believe over my years as an organizer. They’re not genealogy-related, but I thought readers of Organize Your Family History might benefit from them. (Keep reading to the end to see a very special, limited-time offer.)

  1. The less stuff you own, the easier your life is. Less stuff = more freedom.
  2. Relationships are more important than things. Don’t let your stuff get in the way of your relationships.
  3. There is no such thing as perfectly organized. Strive for “organized enough” instead.
  4. You can’t put something away unless you have a place for it. And you can’t have a place for it if you have more stuff than you can comfortably store.
  5. It’s easiest to create a new habit if you pair it with something you’re already doing. Use that trick to let habit creation be easy.
  6. Indecision leads to clutter. Make it a habit to decide immediately what to do with items.
  7. It’s okay to ask for organizing help. In fact, it can be very beneficial.
  8. Messy does not equal disorganized. I’m living proof.
  9. Tidy does not equal organized. I’ve seen many neat but disorganized spaces.
  10. You are not your stuff. Don’t let your stuff (and your ability to organize it) define you.

In yesterday’s newsletter, I made a special, limited-time offer in honor of my anniversary. For the next week, you can purchase all nine of my Organizing Guides for the price of one, just $9. Organizing Guides are my concise, downloadable pdfs that touch on the most common organizing issues that I’ve seen in my decade as a professional organizer. Through July 22, 2015, go to the Organizing Guides page on my website, scroll down to Want them all?, click Add to Cart and use the coupon code POMO10th at checkout to receive all nine guides for just $9.