Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Giving myself permission to be unfocused

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It's okay to be unfocused sometimesI’ve been so focused on being focused that my brain rebelled this weekend. We had a foot of snow here in St. Louis and I wasn’t going anywhere. That meant I could spend more time than usual on my genealogy research. But I just couldn’t focus. I was all over the place.

I blogged last week about how my research log keeps me focused. This morning, I discovered that I was so scattered that I didn’t even write in my log yesterday! I was able to recall most of what I did and create a log entry after the fact. But today I was equally scattered in my session.

And you know what? I’ve decided that’s okay. I did write my next steps in my log and when I get back to it tomorrow morning (which will by necessity have to be a short session), I’m hoping to have more focus. I think it was somewhat beneficial for me to clamber all over my family tree this weekend. Here’s why:

  • I’d been starting to get frustrated at my inability to find some specific documents that would help prove that a grave marker I found on Find a Grave indeed belongs to my family members. Walls (brick or otherwise) aren’t fun.
  • I started thinking about other resources I have in my possession that would be helpful to review (rather than focusing on my online research).
  • I certainly didn’t suffer from tunnel vision this weekend!
  • I decided to give Trello a try for some genealogy to-dos, inspired by comments on the 30 x 30 challenge post from reader Jerry Hereford. (More on that when I’m able to give it a more focused try.)
  • It’s always good when I’m placed in the shoes of people who are asking for my organizing help (genealogy or otherwise). If you sometimes feel unfocused, please know that I can empathize!

So instead of considering my hours of genealogy research this weekend unproductive, I’m going to embrace my lack of focus. I’ll note the ideas and clues sparked by my trips down rabbit holes and let them inspire future research. I’m not going to beat myself up. I’ll just try get back to my focused self tomorrow.

Photo by Robin Spielmann on Unsplash

How my research log keeps me focused

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Ever since I got serious about genealogy in 2012, I’ve struggled with keeping a research log. (Before that, I didn’t even consider keeping one.) In March 2017, after a few unsuccessful attempts at other formats, I settled on keeping my research log in Evernote with a simple note per session where I take free-form notes and always end the note with next steps. The notes are kept in a notebook by year. In April 2017, I blogged in detail about my informal research log. And in March 2017, I blogged about why keeping a research log is important. (If you click on that link, be sure and read the comments, which are really insightful.)

I’m in the middle of a 30 x 30 challenge and therefore researching daily in short sessions. I’m proud that there is a note for each day this month in my 2019 Research Log notebook. One benefit I’m seeing of my research log is that it’s keeping me focused and saving me time. And I appreciate that!

I always write next steps at the bottom of each entry. (True confession: Sometimes, during unproductive sessions, I just copy and paste the next steps from the previous day.) That means that when I sit down to research, all I have to do is pull up the previous day’s session notes and I know exactly what to work on. No more paralysis with the question “What should I work on today?”

Also, writing down what I’m doing seems to keep on task. I try to write as I go with frequent notes in my log each session. Sometimes, though, I end up doing a brain dump at the end of the session. Writing down what I’m doing or have done, keeps my research question top of mind.

When I come across a clue that I want to explore in the future (about a different research question or a different family than the one I’m researching today), I write it down in a follow up folder. I keep follow folders by surname and check them every now and then.

Staying focused is so hard in genealogy research with so many wonderful things to explore and so many temptations put right in front of us. A research log–in concert with follow-up folders to jot down future tasks–is my secret weapon for staying focused. My research log is far from perfect. But it’s consistent and, I’m finding, very helpful.

I have a Facebook group called Genealogy Research Loggers. Please join if you’re interested in research logs!

Avoiding tunnel vision

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Avoid tunnel vision in your genealogy researchI’ve been thinking quite a bit this fall about staying focused, since I spoke on that topic at the St. Louis Genealogy Conference. Focus is  such an important element in making progress in my research. I’m easily overwhelmed by all the possibilities of things to research and I strive to maintain my focus so I can avoid both overwhelm and distractions.

But there’s such a thing as being too focused, I think. Recently I’ve been revisiting early sources in my tree that I found a half decade or more ago. I’m so glad I’m doing it because I’m finding all sorts of things I missed the first time around. For example, on more than one occasion, I’ve re-examined a census document I’d downloaded for one ancestor family to find that another ancestor family–unrelated to the first one–was also on the page.

That reminded me how important it is to examine the whole census page when you find one. And it’s a great idea to expand your scan to a page or two before or after. Our ancestors tended to live near one another and families intermarried. You might end up finding a relative who hadn’t been indexed correctly. Or you might just learn more about your family.

Another even more obvious example of the pitfalls of tunnel vision is the tendency to focus on direct-line relatives. I learned the hard way that it’s important to collect information on all relatives who appear on a census, not just those from whom you descend. I remember back when I was starting out that the idea of recording information on all the collateral relatives felt tedious and overwhelming. That may be true. But these siblings of your ancestors might play key roles in solving puzzles down the road or in helping prove a document applies to your relative’s family and not another family. Trust me, if you expand your exploration (and documentation) to include all your collateral relatives, you’ll be glad you did later.

I recently revisited a marriage document from 1905. The marriage book contained the record for my great grandparents on the right-hand page of a two-page spread. What I simply hadn’t noticed before was that the on left-hand page of that spread was the marriage license for my great grandmother’s sister! Way back then I might have not taken the trouble to record the information, even if I’d noticed it. But now, I’m excited to add this family to my tree and it’s been a springboard for further exploration.

Those are just a few small examples of the benefits of avoiding tunnel vision even while you stay focused. If you can think of others, please share in the comments!

Photo by Angel Origgi on Unsplash

What are your genealogy goals?

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I don’t know if it’s because I’m a professional organizer or if it’s just how I’m wired, but I love setting goals. I set goals for my personal life, my genealogy life, and, of course, my organizing business every year. I typically take a one-day retreat (I detailed how that works in this blog post on my organizing blog last year) devoted to reviewing last year’s goals and setting goals for the coming year.

These are the genealogy goals I set for 2018:

  • Come up with a scheme for keeping me focused
  • Index at least four hours a month at Family Search
  • Attend at least three genealogy conferences
  • Attend at least one week-long institute
  • Go on a research trip
  • Improve my research log and/or my capturing of tasks
  • Add 300 sources to Reunion
  • Create the habit of researching daily

In looking at them today, I’m feeling pretty good, except for the indiexing. Not only did I do no indexing, I didn’t even remember that I wanted to index! Here’s the rest of the scorecard:

  • I feel like I became much more focused in my research–sticking with the Adams line the first six months and shifting to the Rasco line in the latter half of the year helped me stay focused on my research in general. And my short sessions have kept me quite focused.
  • I attended three genealogy conferences: RootsTech in Salt Lake City, the Missouri State Genealogical Association conference in Columbia, Missouri and the St. Louis Genealogy Conference. In addition, I attended a House History workshop from the Missouri Historical Society and a day-long DNA workshop presented by Diahan Southard, sponsored by the St. Louis Genealogical Society.
  • I had to shelve my goal of attending a week-long institute and taking a research trip because my husband was laid off this year and it didn’t seem prudent. He’s happily employed now, so perhaps I can add those things to my 2019 goals.
  • I’m not sure I improved my research log but I did improve my frequency of use. The habit of recording my research activities every session (informally in Evernote) is now ingrained. That’s huge!
  • I was sure I’d added 300 sources to Reunion until I looked. I have just shy of 900 sources and added 185 of them in 2018. I think that goal was just unrealistic.
  • As for daily research, I did better some months than others. These last two months have been much more spotty. But according to my research log, I rocked it in January, February, March, July, August and October. I feel pretty good about that, though there’s room for improvement.

My annual retreat this year will be on December 26. Once again, I’ll include my genealogy research goals in the planning process. Incidentally, a tool that I’ll be using in the process is the Good Enough Goal Setting workbook + audio that my  Getting to Good Enough podcast co-host, Shannon Wilkinson, and I created. I encourage you to check it out!

Do you set goals for your genealogy research? Please feel free to share them in the comments, if you’d like!