Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Pin the tail on the family tree

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igleheart1900Today I had a little time to do some genealogy research, but I couldn’t decide what to work on. So I opened my family tree in my Reunion software, looking for inspiration. I noted the right sidebar had a listing of people on my tree, sorted alphabetically by last name.

I closed my eyes, scrolled up and down a few times on the sidebar and then clicked. The person I landed on was Martha Jane Ellis (1845-1919), my great great grandmother. I set to work looking at her record, looking for missing information. I pulled out the file folder for Martha and her husband, Benjamin Franklin Igelheart (1845-1913) and continuing the process of marrying my paper and electronic files. I also started adding information on siblings into Reunion, something I didn’t do in my first recording of data.

Randomizing my selection feels like a nice piece of serendipity. I sometimes prefer that to a systematic approach. It feels more fun to me and this is all about fun, right?

Direct vs collateral lines

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Keeping track of ancestors' siblings can provide valuable genealogy clues.

My grandfather, Crawford Brown, with his parents and siblings, 1916

So far in my family history research, I’ve focused on direct lines. Except for my own brothers, every person entered into my genealogy software (I use Reunion) is someone I’m directly descended from. I think one of the reasons for that is to try to make genealogy research less overwhelming. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how useful it would be to record brothers and sisters of direct ancestors (i.e. collateral lines). They can give valuable clues and help verify that a person being reached is the right person.

I worry a little about where I should draw the line–if I record the children of the siblings of my direct ancestors, will my family tree feel bloated? Will I feel more overwhelmed?

This came to a head this week when I learned that my grandfather’s only surviving sibling, his sister Mary, passed away at the age of 99. I was fortunate to meet Mary for the first time earlier this year. (That’s Mary, on her father’s lap at the age of four in the photo. My grandfather, Crawford, is standing at his father’s left shoulder.) She was delightful, with sparkling eyes and an easy laugh. I’m saddened by her passing.

Somehow it feels wrong that Mary’s not included in my family tree entries. I’ve decided to record siblings of my direct line as I come across them. My mother’s cousins Jerry and Judy Brown (Aunt Mary’s nephew and niece) have done a lot of genealogy research–including oral history with Mary–so adding that part of the family will be easy. I don’t know that I’ll go out of my way to research collateral lines (though who knows?), but I intend to verify and record information as I encounter it.

It seems clear to me that I shouldn’t be afraid of having too much information, as long as I apply the same standards of accuracy to my collateral lines as I do my direct lines. I don’t mind recording information–in fact, I rather enjoy it. So I’m comfortable with my decision to start including collateral lines. I’ll try not to let it overwhelm me!

For more in-depth information on how I organize my own genealogy, including my collateral lines, check out  How I Do It: A Professional Organizer’s Genealogy Workflow, a 37-page downloadable pdf published in 2021 and available for $19.99.

Tracking progress

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My memory is not what it used to be. And I’m finding the more family history research I do, the more I’m duplicating effort. In the process of researching one person, another person will pop into my mind. I’ll look for a record for that person, rejoice in finding it, then realize I’d already found it!

So in an effort to avoid that, as well help me in my never-ending quest to not feel overwhelmed about my genealogy research, this past weekend I created a series of progress-tracking spreadsheets. I was inspired by Miriam’s Census Spreadsheet, which is a Google Doc. I’m a Mac user and I used the Numbers program (similar to Excel) to create three spreadsheets (so far) that track progress, by ancestor, on finding the following records:

Sheet 1: BMD

  1. birth records
  2. marriage records
  3. death records
  4. burial records
  5. grave photos

Sheet 2: Censuses

On the first table (pictured above) I have a row for each ancestor (this is a work in progress…I’ve been adding info a generation at a time and up to my great-great grandparents), and a column for each U.S. Census. I fill in the square in blue if that record was found. A grey square indicates the ancestor wasn’t alive for that census. A blank (white) square indicates I still need to find this record. I also have a table of state censuses, so I can note those.

Sheet 3: Military

Here I track what military records I’ve found for each ancestor, by war or conflict. This one’s definitely a work in progress.

Going through this process helped me realize how much census work I’d done and how much more work I had to do to find birth, marriage and death records. I think these charts will help me feel a sense of accomplishment and also help me hone in on work that needs to be done. I’ll keep adding ancestors from Reunion, until I’m caught up, and then plan to keep up with the spreadsheet as I find more records.

My genealogy time-management plan

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Ticking clockWhen it comes to my family history research, time management is a big challenge for me. I want to hunker in and start researching my family. But I also want to learn more techniques for doing the research. And I want to stay on top of the resources that are available out there. And I want to read other genealogy blogs, because they’re so interesting.

But there are only so many hours in a day.

Getting overwhelmed has always been a challenge for me in my research. I think it has to do with the abundance of possibilities this avocation offers. There’s so much to learn about my family and so many ways to go about learning it.

I do well with structure and I know that, for me, structure helps me deal with that overwhelmed feeling I get in the face of too many choices. (This is a theme in my life.)

So in thinking about how I might structure my genealogy research time to avoid overwhelm and actually get stuff done, this is what I’m thinking:

  • I’d like to allot a certain number of hours a week to doing family history research.
  • I’d like to divide those house among a variety of pursuits, assigning a percentage to each.

So how do I go about deciding how many hours and what percentages? It’s pretty much a crap shoot. I know from experience there’s no point in worrying about getting it right at the outset. I need to just pick a starting point and adjust as experience dictates. So here’s the goal I’m going to set for myself, for the remainder of March and the month of April (keeping in mind I’m away for a week in April where no family history work will be done).

  • I’m going to strive to work 10 hours a week on family-history-research-related activities.

I’ll try to divide those ten hours this way:

  • 50 percent on actual research about my family (5 hours)
  • 20 percent going through downloaded learning resources (2 hours)
  • 20 percent reading genealogy blogs (2 hours)
  • 10 percent organizing my family history research (1 hour)

My research is pretty well organized and I don’t have a big backlog, so an hour a week should do it. I could see needing to spend more than an hour a week organizing.

This is just a starting point. I could be way off on my percentages. I think I’ll keep a time sheet of some sort so I can see how I’m actually using family history research time and how the percentages actually shake out.

I’ll report back how it works out and whether this structure has helped.

How about you? How do you balance the research with the learning and the organizing?

Photo by R.L. Hyde via Flickr