Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Free access to Fold3’s Civil War records through April 15

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Free access to Fold3's Civil War collectionTo commemorate the start of the Civil War in 1861, Fold3 is making its Civil War collection available at no cost until April 15. The Civil War collection has 50 titles and 91 million records. Click here to learn more about it and get started.

Included in the collection are both Union and Confederate records. Titles available at no cost until the 15th include:

  • Civil War “Widow’s Pension” Files
  • Civil War Pensions Index
  • Confederate Service Records
  • Confederate Amnesty Papers
  • Southern Claims Commissions

As Fold3 points out in in its blog post about the free access, even if you can’t find your own ancestor at Fold3 you can use the collection to learn more about what his service might have been like.

If you don’t already subscribe to Fold3 and you have Civil War ancestors, this is a great opportunity to check out their plentiful holdings!

Keeping track of the FAN Club

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I’ve heard over the years about researching our ancestors’ Family, Associates and Neighbors (or FAN Club or FAN Principle, a term credited to Elizabeth Shown Mills) as a way to learn more and get past brick walls. At RootsTech, I heard a terrific talk from Drew Smith on the topic. (Another term for the FAN principle is Cluster Research.)

When I came home and decided to spend some time doing FAN research, I was initially flummoxed by the question of how I would keep track of these people. I typically document all information about my ancestors in my desktop genealogy software. (I use Reunion.) Everyone in Reunion is related by blood or marriage and is connected on the tree. (I’m at the base of the tree.) But some of these FANs aren’t family, so it didn’t make sense to me to put them into Reunion.

I googled a little and didn’t come up with definitive advice, so I decided on an organizing system for FAN research that I think will work for me. In Evernote, in my Genealogy stack, I already have follow up notebooks for different family lines. This is a way to keep me focused so that I don’t pounce on every clue that I come across. So, for example, I have a notebook called Follow Up: McEuen and when I come across a research topic or clue for a McEuen, I put it there, in an individual note. At some point, I’ll refocus my efforts on the Follow Up notebooks and until then, all this information is safe in Evernote. It gives me peace of mind.

So I figured I could do the same with FANs. I can start a series of FAN: [Surname] notebooks and when I’m doing FAN research, I can create notes within each notebook about various associates and neighbors who seem significant. When I uncover evidence about my family that I want to record in Reunion, I’ll put it there (always with a source). But when I have FAN information that doesn’t make sense to add to Reunion, I’ll keep it in Evernote. Of course, I can also add associates and neighbors to the notes section in Reunion when appropriate. And Evernote allows me to create links to notes, which I can use in Reunion notes, if I want.

As I apply the FAN principle more, I’ll see if this simple method of keeping track of them will be sufficient. My overriding principle is to keep things as easy as possible.

Please share: how do you record information on your ancestors FANs?

Overwhelm rears its ugly head

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In the past, I was easily overwhelmed by my genealogy research. As my tree grew, so did my opportunities for research. I would sit down to research with no idea what to work on. A few years ago, I implemented a quarterly plan, where I would focus on one line per quarter, which helped narrow things down. That helped somewhat.

My focus got better when I implemented a few practices:

  • I decided to focus on one line (my Adams line) all year. That was last year, and this year, I’ve been sticking with the Adams family.
  • I started keeping an informal research log. At the end of each session, I write down next steps.
  • I consistently research every day, even if it’s as little as 15 minutes. That keeps my head in the game and means I don’t have to refamiliarize myself with my research at the beginning of the session.

Things were going along very well for the last six to nine months. Then I went to RootsTech.

The double-edged sword of being focused is that you get a lot done, but you have blinders on about other avenues or opportunities for research. RootsTech stripped off those blinders and I took lots of notes about possible things to research. I also came back from the conference with a busy client schedule and not as much time for research.

The result? I feel like I’m floundering a bit. I’m still researching daily. I’m still writing down next steps, but I’m a bit all over the place.

So today, I’m resolving to regain focus. My intention is to do that by choosing a project I can complete in a reasonable amount of time, one that has a clear start and finish. I have a bunch of unprocessed documents in my Surnames folder. As part of my digital workflow, I’m supposed to process all documents as I download them, but when I was at the Family History Library right before RootsTech I wasn’t able to do that. I’m going to focus on extracting data from those documents and filing them properly. In the case of the handwritten deeds I downloaded, I’ll also transcribe them.

I’m already feeling better because I have a focus, I know what I’ll be working on and I’ll be doing so systematically until I finish. When I come across other leads, I’ll write them down in my follow up folders in Evernote. (I keep follow up folders by surname in my Genealogy stack.) I’m hopeful that by the time I finish with this project I’ll have my mojo back and be able to stave off those feelings of overwhelm!

Keep your eyes out for a new 30 x 30 challenge in April. I’m going to need one!

Unmodified photo by Chris Duglosz via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

Exercising my microfilm muscle

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I headed to Salt Lake City this morning to attended RootsTech. I landed at 11:30 a.m., dropped my suitcase off at my hotel and made a bee-line for the Family History Library. I had a list of things to look up and I was raring to go.

Just a few days ago, I had come across an index to deed books for Hopkins County, Kentucky, covering 1807-1939. Both the index and the deed books themselves are available at the Family History Library. But only the index has been digitized; the books themselves (with the exception of a couple) are available only on microfilm.

I was so happy to find the index right before, rather than right after, I was going to be in Salt Lake City! So today, I looked up the microfilm numbers, found the six rolls of microfilm (I didn’t realize I was supposed to limit myself to five at a time) and took up residence at the microfilm reader. At first, I was uncertain and slow. But by the third reel, I was a microfilm ninja!

At the Family History Library, in order to get a copy of the document you find on microfilm, you take the microfilm spool, along with the take-up reel, and carry them to a scanning machine. This way you’re saving your place on the film.

I was intimidated at the prospect of scanning from microfilm using unfamiliar software, but the staff member gave me a patient lesson (she used a pointer to point at the screen!) and after getting help just once, I was able to do it on my own the next eleven documents. It’s a little more complicated than it sounds because you have to zoom in and out, straighten pages and adjust the brightness. I felt so empowered!

I found some great stuff in those deed books and though I was a bit bleery eyed four hours later when I’d made it through all my lookups, it was well worth the effort. I’m grateful that I seldom have to use microfilm. Searching and browsing digital copies of documents and downloading with a single click is so much easier. But I always like it when I gain an appreciation for all the work that pre-internet genealogists went through.

It was a great start to my RootsTech week!