Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Quick Tip #20: Write everything down

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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 couple of weeks on a small topic that pops into my head. This one saves time and frustration!

Write everything down

I learned a number of years ago that I can’t rely on my memory when it comes to genealogy. (Or a lot of things, for that matter.) I can keep a few ancestors’ names and birth and death dates in my head, but only a few. I used to think I would remember to pick up where I left off in a session or to pursue a clue (from a previous session or even the current one). But now I don’t take a chance, I write it down.

The key to success in taking these notes is having a place to put them so you know where to look. That could be a spiral bound notebook or a pad you keep by your keyboard. Or it could be a note in your genealogy software. Or it could be in follow-up notebooks in a platform like Evernote (that’s what I use). Or in your research log, in whatever form it takes

The takeaways here are twofold: (1) don’t rely on your memory and (2) have a consistent place where you put follow-up notes or lists of tasks. This small practice makes everything easier!

Quick Tip #19: Start where you are

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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 couple of weeks on a small topic that pops into my head. I hope this one will help you treat yourself with kindness and get past overwhelm.

Start where you are

I hear from a lot of people who feel overwhelmed by the thought of transitioning from organizing their genealogy documents in paper form to digital form. The notion of having to scan everything gathered over years of research is truly daunting.

Here’s the advice I give: Just start where you are and from this point forward process new documents digitally. Then, slowly, you can make your way through the backlog, perhaps scanning a few documents each day and using a timer to keep you on task and keep you from burning out.

This advice can apply to doing other new things as well. Let go of any pressure to do everything at once or do everything perfectly. Start where you are at your current level of knowledge, and move forward. Perfectionism can be paralyzing (as my co-host and I discuss on our podcast, Getting to Good Enough, every week). Don’t let it stop you from pursuing a goal!

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

Quick Tip #18: Let go of “should”

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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 couple of weeks on a small topic that pops into my head. This is one that I tell my clients (and myself) over and over.

Let go of the word “should”

Should is one of my least favorite words. My advice: Don’t let anyone tell you how you should organize your research, how far you should go out on your tree, or whether your Ancestry tree should be public or private. You do you.

That said, there are a few actual shoulds in genealogy. You should cite your sources. You should evaluate everything critically. You should do your own research, rather than just copying someone’s tree. You should be polite to your fellow genealogists.

But so much is optional in this wonderful hobby. I encourage you to follow your own sense of the way you want to do things. Particularly when it comes to organizing your research, the only should, in my opinion, is that you should use a system that works for you.

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

Quick Tip #15: Resist the urge to print

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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 couple of weeks on a small topic that pops into my head. This one changed my genealogy life.

Resist the urge to print

As a professional organizer, I know what a problem paper clutter can be. And I know how hard it can be to access unfiled paper (and so much paper is unfiled!). So I am a huge proponent of not printing genealogy documents I find online. Instead, I encourage you to download and file them.

The key to feeling confident about downloading, rather than printing, is to have a reliable file-naming protocol and folder structure so that you can find the documents. Mine is detailed in this post, but yours might be different. That’s great, as long as it works for you. When you download and file digitally, rather than print and file or put into binders, your documents are always at your fingertips when you’re at your computer, even if you’re at a library or repository. It can be a mindset shift, but I think it’s worth it.

It’s important to mention, as was brought up in the comments to this post, that it’s absolutely essential to backup your hard drive if you’re going to store your documents digitally. I wrote about this in my last quick tip.

For extensive information on going paperless in your genealogy research, check out the Paperless Genealogy Guide I wrote with scanning expert Brooks Duncan, available for purchase at his website, DocumentSnap.

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash