Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Quick Tip #13: Create follow-up notebooks to stay focused

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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 has saved me from going down a rabbit hole many times.

Create follow-up notebooks to stay focused

I love playing detective, which is probably why I love genealogy research. So when I’m looking for information online it’s really hard to resist exploring every clue or idea that comes my way in the course of a research session. But if I do follow every lead, I often end up far away from where I intended to go.

That’s where follow-up notebooks come in. I have created follow-up notebooks by surname in Evernote. (This could certainly be accomplished in other platforms, in a tab in a spreadsheet, or on paper.) When I come across a clue or resource that has no bearing on the research question at hand, I just make a new note in the appropriate follow-up notebook. Later, when I’m researching that surname, the note is waiting for me. I don’t have to worry about forgetting it!

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

Quick Tip #12: Don’t enter a fact without creating a source citation

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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 think this tip is an especially important one.

Don’t enter a fact without creating a source citation

When I first caught the genealogy bug at the turn of this century, I wrote down facts willy nilly without bothering to note where the fact came from. My “research” progressed quickly, but I ended up with an unreliable mess. I abandoned researching for a number of years and when I came back to in 2011 I vowed never to enter a fact into my database without creating a source citation and assigning that source to the fact.

That policy has served me well and is part of my digital workflow. Having a source for every single fact in my Reunion database means that when conflicting information come up, I can easily evaluate the sources and make a determination on what is more likely to be true. It gives me confidence in my research. And it makes my research more credible (and valuable) to others.

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

Quick Tip #11: Process each document as you download it

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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. When I don’t do what I suggest in this tip, I always regret it!

Process each document as you download it

I am always battling a backlog of documents I’ve downloaded that need to be processed. By “processed” I mean creating a source citation, going through the document and gleaning facts and adding them to my Reunion database, with each fact sharing a source citation. (I describe how I process a document in this post.)

I love processing documents, actually. But when I’m in a flurry of searching, I sometimes keep downloading without processing. (Though I always rename the document, as described in Quick Tip #1.) When I let that backlog build up, I end up trying to stop myself from doing additional research until I get rid of it. I often accomplish that during a 30 x 30 challenge.

But when I’m on my game, I process as I go and it feels great. (It makes me feel like a researcher, not just a searcher.) I encourage you to give it a try if you’re not already doing it!

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash

Quick Tip #10: Start with a research question

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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. My research always goes better when follow the advice in this tip!

Start your research session with a question

It can be fun to click around on Ancestry and Family Search and just see what you can find. But if instead you start your session with a research question in mind, your precious research time will be better spent. Knowing what you’re looking for helps you stay focused and resist temptation. If you come across tempting information that doesn’t pertain to your research question, you can make note of it in your research log (or somewhere else) so you can come back to it at a later session.

Having a research question for each session is bound to make your sessions more productive and move your research along more quickly.

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash