Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

You CAN organize your family history

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I just re-read an empowering post that I originally ran here on February 19, 2021. I’ve slightly edited it and am running it again, because I think it’s a powerful message. I hope you think so too.

I’m a big fan of the Yoga with Adriene YouTube channel. I’ve been doing at-home yoga via free videos hosted by Adriene Mishler for just over two years. My practice is a little more spotty these days, but during the pandemic I didn’t miss a day for more than a year.

Why am I mentioning this on my genealogy blog? The video I did on February 19, 2021 was called Yoga for Self Doubt. It was a lovely practice with an encouraging and empowering message. I love Adriene so much, I often ask myself how I can be more like her. I walked off the yoga mat with the intention of being more empowering for my clients and the people who read my blogs. So I decided to simply express encouragement and empowerment on the blog in this post.

If you came to this website because you were confused or overwhelmed about how to organize your genealogy research, I’m here to tell you that as challenging as it might feel, you can do it. It it feels confusing, just get started and the confusion may clear up for you.

Try to let go of any fear that you’ll do it wrong. First of all, there isn’t a right way to organize your genealogy; there’s just the way that works for you. Secondly if you start on a path that doesn’t work for you, you can always tweak it.

Sometimes it can be helpful to do a do-over. Purchase some software, and start entering in your family tree, including only verified facts and citing your sources to back up those facts. That’s what I did when I abandoned my over 100 pages of hand-written (unsourced) five-generation pedigree charts about ten years ago. I take great comfort in knowing I have a solid tree (and I’m improving my source citations and gleaning more information as I work on my source documentation project).

If genealogy ever gets you down, please don’t beat yourself up. Remember you’re fully capable of getting back on course. Take a class. Sign up for the Rootstech virtual (or in-person) conference so you can have access to hundreds of free educational sessions. Keep reading genealogy blogs. Join my mailing list. Use social media to get advice or find cousins who can help.

If you have specific organizing questions related to genealogy, feel free to reach out to me via email and I’ll see if I can help. And if you have suggestions for topics I could cover on the blog, let me know.

Genealogy is an amazing hobby, but I know from experience it’s easy to feel bogged down or overwhelmed. Please don’t feel discouraged. You got this!

Baby stepping my way back into research

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I don’t think I’ve ever felt this disconnected from my genealogy research in the ten years since I started this blog. The death of my father on August 20, coupled with the overwhelming amount of work I’m responsible for as his executor and the need to run my organizing business (I’m so grateful for my amazing employees!), means that family history research fell to the bottom of my priority list.

But I really miss doing research. I miss feeling connected to my ancestors. And I miss feeling connected to my readers. So today I’m figuring out a gentle plan to get back into the swing of it.

Here’s my guiding principle: Baby steps. I’m creating a tiny task list of things I can do to dip my toe back into my genealogy pool without feeling overwhelmed or like it’s too time-consuming to start. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. I’ve purposely kept the list short so it won’t feel overwhelming, but I give myself permission to add to it whenever I want:

  • Process one document in my backlog
  • Process one document related to my father’s passing (so far all I’ve put into my database was his death certificate, which was a little painful)
  • Pick one ancestor in my database and see what documents I’m missing
  • Search for one document from that missing documents list
  • Send 15 minutes inventorying the family archive of objects from my father and aunt (who moved into a nursing home)

In the last month, I’ve just been stymied by the thought, “I need to do some genealogy research.” Now, with this list, I feel like I can actually take action when I have that thought.

This feels like huge progress and I’ll post an update about whether it’s working. Wish me luck.

If you’ve been in this position, I would certainly be interested learning how you got back on the saddle with your research!

Some great downsizing advice

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Photo of Gena Philibert-Ortega

Gena Philibert-Ortega

Downsizing is something that most of us deal with at one time or another. And when you’re a genealogist, it’s especially challenging. (I blogged about it earlier this month.)

I was asked by Gena Philibert-Ortega to contribute some insights to her terrific two-part article on downsizing for Legacy Family Tree’s blog. She gathered some terrific advice from a variety of people and it’s definitely worth a read.

Here are the links:

Downsizing (Part 1) – Getting the Process Rolling (that’s the one I’m quoted in)

Downsizing (Part 2) – Let the Voices of Experience Guide You

Thank you, Gena, for including me!

Downsizing when you’re the family historian

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I was so delighted to see in my email this week that my friend, Amy Johnson Crow, is promoting the podcast episode she and I recorded back in the fall of 2019, Downsizing and Family History.

When I spoke to her in 2019 I didn’t have any personal experience with dealing with inherited family history items. I always viewed my parents as non-collectors and figured when the time came I wouldn’t be faced with too many challenges. But I’ve gained some experience now and there were plenty of challenges. In March, my father’s older sister moved into skilled nursing and I sold her home for her. (I’m her Power of Attorney.) I requested that any family-history related items be taken to my father’s condo for me to go through later. Then in May, I moved my father into assisted living and faced down going through his stuff and my aunt’s stuff in the same week so I could get his condo on the market. He passed away August 20, only three months after moving, and I needed to clear out his assisted-living apartment in a matter of a few days.

I tried to practice what I preach and get in touch with what’s important to me about these documents and photos. I tried to evaluate their potential value for future historians. I offered a bunch of stuff to my brothers (one took stuff, the other didn’t). And I shipped some boxes to myself.

I have sorted through the seven boxes I shipped in May but am still processing those documents and photos. I am anticipating a shipment today of stuff from my father’s apartment. I’ll spend some time in the coming week going through those items and figuring how/where to store them. I know that Stacy Julian’s method, How to BEGIN with the BOX, will be very helpful again.

As the family historian for my family, I feel a lot of responsibility for these items. But I’m going to use my expertise as a professional organizer to try to save those items that are the most valuable from a genealogy standpoint. My perspective, as I shared on Amy’s podcast, is that the more I keep of any one category of item, the less special any of it is. But I also know that now isn’t the best time to make decisions with lasting repercussions. So I will probably save more than I might otherwise for later consideration.

If you’ve been through this, I’d be very interested in hearing about your approach!

 

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When you first join the list, I’ll send you a few emails to help you organize your family history. After that you’ll hear from me at the end of every month when I send an email with links to that month’s posts. And every now and then, I’ll let you know when I have something special to promote.