Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Sneaking in a few hours at the Family History Library

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An aisle of microfilm at the Family History Library

I leave for Salt Lake City on Tuesday morning to attend RootsTech. It just hit me that I have about three hours on Tuesday afternoon before I have to be at the social event for speakers when I could visit the Family History Library. Unfortunately, it’s been such a hectic month between travel and organizing work that I haven’t been focusing on my genealogy research as much as I’d like.

The Family History Library can be so overwhelming and I know that the key to success for me will be to know what I’m looking for so I can make the most of my brief time there. I took a look at my Library Lookups notebook in my genealogy stack in Evernote and was pleased to see some physical books as well as microfilms listed there that I am able to see only when I’m at the library in Salt Lake City. (That notebook also contains notes for items at can see locally at the an FHL-affiliated library.)

So plan is to be arrive in Salt Lake, check into my hotel (if I can), eat lunch, drink plenty of water and hit the library with a whole lot of focus. I had great visits there in 2017 and 2018 and I hope to repeat my success.

As I asked in 2017, if any of you have any advice on strategies or things to bring along to the library to make it easier (I’ll have my phone and my laptop), I’m all ears!

My “good enough” research log

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My good enough research logWe’re in the midst of a 30 x 30 challenge this month so I’ve been researching every day. It feels great. I have no more than 30 minutes (sometimes less) to research most days this month, so I rely on my research log to help me start each session.

I’ve blogged before about my research log and its value. This month, because I’m working on my RootsTech talk “The Imperfection Genealogist,” I’ve been reflecting on the fact that my very informal research log is far from perfect. But it’s certainly good enough.

How do I know it’s good enough? It’s because I’m in touch with why I want to keep a research log and the ways I use it. For me, it’s about knowing what I’ve researched in a given session and (perhaps more importantly) what my next steps are. It also tells me at a glance how frequently I’m researching. I keep my research log in Evernote, but I track of all my documents and family tree elsewhere, so I’m not creating source citations or storing documents in my research log. You might have a research log for different reasons. And yours may be very different from mine. And that’s great.

My good-enough research log is an Evernote notebook by year (I started the 2020 research log notebooks ten days ago), pinned as a shortcut in the sidebar. Each time I research, I open the notebook, create a new note with today’s date, and then write in free from what I worked on that day. I write down the questions that come up. I write down any discoveries. And I end the session by writing down the next steps. That way, when I start the next session, whether it’s the next day or the next month, I know where to start. That’s been a huge time saver for me. (I blogged in more detail about my research log in this post. About a year ago, I wrote a post about how my research log keeps me focused.)

This month, I’ve added an Evernote template that allows me to check off that I completed a session and I also add how many minutes I researched, because I’m hoping that I’ll get in 900 minutes in the 30 x 30 challenge, even if I don’t manage 30 minutes in some individual sessions. This is motivating to me, because when I see the checkmarks each day it makes me want to not break the chain. I also jot down in a couple of words what type of work I did. The picture at the top of this post is screenshot of the note that contains the template, which is in addition to my usual daily note but also stored in the 2020 research log notebook. (To get that template, I clicked on New Note, then on Template right in the note, then Habit Tracker in the Template Gallery. That inserted the template into the note and I edited it a bit.)

When I first started contemplating creating a research log in 2012, I could understand its value but I got wrapped up in trying to do it perfectly. Predictably, my first attempts failed. But as soon as I got in touch with what I really wanted out a research log and I made it easy to accomplish, things fell into place. Now, I’m glad to say that I’ve developed a habit of logging my session every day.

A couple of years ago, I created a Facebook group called Genealogy Research Loggers. We’re a pretty quiet group, but if you’d like some help and accountability for creating a research log habit, please join us!

For detailed information on how I organize my own genealogy research (including my research log), check out my Orderly Roots Guide, How I Do It: A Professional Organizer’s Genealogy Workflow, available for $19.99.

My 2020 genealogy goals

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I have a confession to make. I’m good at setting genealogy goals at the beginning of the year but I’m very bad at paying attention to them. One of the problems is that in the past I’ve set up complicated (though measurable) goals that I’m not able to keep top of mind. I set a complicated goal chart as part of my 2015 goals and I’m pretty sure I didn’t look at it all year. Another problem I’ve encountered is that my genealogy goals were sometimes unrealistic. In the post linked above, I wrote, “I’ve learned that when I create unrealistic goals I tend to ignore them.” That is so true.

So this year, I’m keeping it simple. I’ve decided to focus on my paternal great grandmother’s line, the Iglehearts, after having spent a couple of years researching her husband’s line. It’s full of opportunity because I have a Civil War Union veteran in that line (Benjamin Franklin Igleheart, 1845-1913) whose Civil War pension file I haven’t yet transcribed or analyzed. I can also trace myself back to the Mayflower on that line, but I haven’t verified everyone in that path. I’m excited to shift gears a little and focus on some different people.

Here are the goals I set out for myself for 2020, which I wrote in Evernote on an airplane ride on January 3. They feel gentle and realistic.

  2. Transcribe Benjamin Franklin Igleheart’s Civil War pension
  3. Trace myself back to the Mayflower by Thanksgiving
  4. Eliminate the downloaded documents backlog
  5. Create habit of processing documents as I download them
  6. Keep logging each research session (including next actions)
  8. Consume purchased learning resources
  9. Watch at least one webinar a week

If I can build a daily-research habit and a habit of watching a webinar every week, this will be a huge win. I think the practices outlined above will help stay in touch with my research and give me focus if I flounder. My goal of cultivating a daily research habit probably will mean lots of 30 x 30 challenges in 2020!

I tend to select a word of the year at the beginning of each year and this year’s word is INTENTION. These genealogy goals feel full of intention and I really think my word will bring me back to them every day.

How about you? Did you create genealogy goals for 2020? If so, feel free to share them!

 

Photo by Hobbies on a Budget via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

Getting back in the saddle

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I wrote a novel last month, as part of National Novel Writing Month. It was a fun challenge that I do every five years. But this year, my November was particularly busy with organizing clients, so my time was very tight. In order to fit in 1700 words a day, something had to give. And that something was genealogy research.

So the novel is written and put away forever and now I get to think about my ancestors again! But when I sat down to research today, I realized that I had no idea where to start. The question of what to research today has plagued me for years and one way I overcame that challenge was frequent research and the “next steps” question in my research log.

Today, I feel adrift because it’s been more than a month since I researched that I can’t even remember what I was working on. That’s where my research log came to to the rescue. I read the last few entries (from late October) and was reminded what I’d been working on and how I might pick up the threads of my research. These were the choices I found:

  • Continue working on reducing my backlog of downloaded, but not processed, documents;
  • Read the book I’d checked out through interlibrary loan about the Mentelle family, from whom I’m descended. (On my Kentucky research trip, I’d made the connection between me and this relatively famous family.) That book is due to be returned later this month;
  • Listen to some of the talks from the NARA Virtual Genealogy Fair.

I literally had forgotten about the talks from the virtual fair that I’d wanted to listen to. And despite being in physical possession of the library book, reading the book had slipped my mind as well. (I do know where it is, though!) I’m very grateful for my very informal research log, which is helping me jump back i n.

In case you’re curious, since my library book is due this month, it has become more urgent and is therefore commanding my attention. So my research time this week will be spent reading and extracting information from that book.

I’m looking forward to getting back to daily (or at least almost-daily) research. And I plan to start a new 30 x 30 challenge in January, so stay tuned!