Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Quick Tip #45: Have a genealogy email address

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Here’s the next in my occasional series of bite-size Quick Tips. Click on the Quick Tips tag for my other Quick Tips. Because I tend to write longer posts, I wanted to provide a quick-to-read (and quick-to-write) post every now and then on a small topic that pops into my head. This one could turn into a time saver!

Create an email address for genealogy

Keeping track of email is a challenge for the best of us. (You do not want to see how many emails I have in my inbox right now!) One way you can make genealogy life a little easier is to create a dedicated email address specifically for emails related to your research. So if you are reaching out to cousins, repositories, or DNA matches you send your inquiries from that address and use that address on any contact forms. How you create a new email address and filter the responses depends on your email client, so I won’t go into that here. I just want to plant the seed that having an email address dedicated to genealogy might make your life a little bit easier!.

Quick Tip #44: When in doubt, leave it out

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Here’s the next in my occasional series of bite-size Quick Tips. Click on the Quick Tips tag for my other Quick Tips. Because I tend to write longer posts, I wanted to provide a quick-to-read (and quick-to-write) post every now and then on a small topic that pops into my head. This one is a good adage to apply to your genealogy research.

When in doubt, leave it out

If you want to build a reliable tree, you need to be very careful about what you add to it. If you’re not sure that an ancestor you’ve come across in your research is your ancestor, don’t add that person to your tree until you’ve done more research to verify that this is your person. That doesn’t mean you should ignore the clue; you can park it somewhere. I use follow-up folders organized by surname in Apple Notes to store that information. (I am in the process of switching over to Apple Notes from Evernote for my research log and follow up folders.)

This applies to sources, as well as people.  I don’t add any fact to my tree that I can’t back up with a source. And I want to make sure it’s a reliable source before I add it to the tree.

As someone who created a very unreliable tree in the beginning, I think it’s worthwhile to take a slow and meticulous approach to make sure that my tree is rock solid.

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

Quick Tip #42: Check multiple sites before giving up

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Here’s the next in my occasional series of bite-size Quick Tips. Click on the Quick Tips tag for my other Quick Tips. Because I tend to write longer posts, I wanted to provide a quick-to-read (and quick-to-write) post every now and then on a small topic that pops into my head. This one is a good lesson on being persistent.

Check multiple sites before giving up

It can be frustrating when you can’t find a document, especially when you’re pretty darn sure it exists. Even when you pull out all the stops and search every way you can think of  at an online site,  you can come up short. But don’t give up yet! Instead, take a look at another online database. Your document may have been indexed differently by that other database and could show up in your search. (This tip applies to in-person research as well!)

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

Quick Tip #41: Read everything with a critical eye

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Here’s the next in my occasional series of bite-size Quick Tips. Click on the Quick Tips tag for my other Quick Tips. Because I tend to write longer posts, I wanted to provide a quick-to-read (and quick-to-write) post every now and then on a small topic that pops into my head. This one is an important reminder.

Read everything with a critical eye

When you’re evaluating evidence, it’s a good idea to keep in mind that what you’re reading may not be right. If it’s a fact that another researcher has provided, be sure to check for a source citation and then look at the actual source. When looking at a document, consider the informant and how likely the document is to be accurate. Information on an ancestor’s birth, for example, is more likely to be accurate if it came from a birth certificate than from a death certificate, since it’s closer in time to the event. The accuracy of a census record depends on the knowledge of the person who the gave the information to the enumerator, as well as the enumerator’s listening (and handwriting) skills, among other factors.

If you find conflicting evidence, it’s easy assume that the information you found first was correct and that the subsequent information is inaccurate. But that might not be the case. Try to be critical about all the information you come across in your research.

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash