Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Researching little and often

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Ten days into May, I am happy to report that I’ve kept up my daily research (except for one day). Typically when I finish a 30 x 30 challenge, I stop researching for days at a time. But this time, I am trying to do a little research every day, even if it’s only for a few minutes.

I find that when I’m able to research every day, it keeps me connected to my research and more inclined to start the next day. I pick up right where I left off and get right to work. (I’m working through the follow-up folder I created during the April challenge.)

In organizing, I talk about the concept of little and often quite a bit. If you’re trying to declutter, for example, daily effort can be so much more productive (and painless) than trying to put aside a full or half day to declutter. I think genealogy is more fun for most people than decluttering, but the same concept applies. You’ll make progress if you put in just a few minutes a day and you’ll stay connected to your research questions and quandaries.

I urge you to embrace little and often in your research (and other areas of your life)!

A quick thank you to all who purchased How I Do It or The Orderly Roots Bundle during the launch last week. I was so pleased that so many of you bought the guides and I hope you’re finding them helpful!

Why do you want to organize your research?

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As a professional organizer (and podcaster who pays a lot of attention to perfectionism) I know that getting in touch with why you want to get organized is invaluable. Instead of thinking, “I should get organized,” which isn’t very motivating, you can take a moment to reflect on why getting organized is important to you. When you do that, you can more easily take action. And you can get past perfectionism and know when something is good enough.

This is true of organizing your home, and it’s also true of organizing your genealogy research. Why do you want to get organized? Here are some possible reasons:

  • To fully benefit from the information contained in the documents you find
  • To trust your research
  • To have facts at your fingertips to share with others
  • To have your research in a format that you can easily share
  • To feel less overwhelmed and more in control of your research
  • To pass along your legacy to your descendants

Knowing why it’s important to you to make the effort to organize your research can help you select a system that will work for you and help you let go of the notion that your system has to be perfect. Trust me, it doesn’t. It just needs to serve your “why.”

I’d love to hear about why you want to organize your research. Just leave a comment. For me, it’s all about benefiting from my work and trusting my research.

If you sign up for my free Mailing List, you’ll receive a series of emails from me that touch on these issues. If you’re not yet on the Mailing List, I encourage you to sign up!

Trying to stay laser focused this month

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Sample from my genealogy follow up notebookIt’s less than a week in, but I’m really enjoying this month’s 30 x 30 challenge. My goal is to get through as much of my backlog as I can. On April 1, I had 112 files in my backlog waiting to be processed, but many of them are newspaper articles, which come in pairs (a jpg with the whole page and a pdf of the clip). At minimum, therefore, I have 56 source documents to process. In reality, it’s more than that.

I’ve tried this in the past and failed. I would end up allowing myself to do further research if questions came up during the backlog busting. That would slow down the elimination of the backlog, for obvious reasons. But this month, I’m trying very hard not to do any research; I have a laser focus on processing files. (By that, I mean I’m analyzing each document, creating a source citation and attaching it to all the facts I glean from a document.)

I created a note in my Evernote research log called, “Follow ups from April 30 x 30 backlog busting.” And when I come across further research I need to do, I note it there. That’s a picture of it above. Like the rest of my research log, my follow-up notes are very casual.

My intention is to turn my focus to this follow-up note when this month’s 30 x 30 is over. I’ve set a reminder in Evernote to look at that note on May 1. (I felt like a genius when I thought of the reminder!)

In six days, I’ve processed 25 documents. If I can keep this pace up I should be able to get rid of my backlog by the end of the month. I’m feeling really productive and I’m really enjoying myself. I think the key, right now, is my determination to not add new documents. Of course, if I don’t succeed, I’ll cut myself a ton of slack because I know that any progress I make is good.

I hope your 30 x 30 is going just as well!

Quick Tip #17: Schedule time for genealogy education

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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 will help me learn more without feeling behind or overwhelmed.

Schedule time for genealogy education

There are so many great learning opportunities in genealogy but it can be easy to miss out unless you become intentional about it. I suggest setting a regular time in an interval that works for you (say, every Saturday morning or the first Monday evening of the month) to focus on learning and expanding your genealogy skills.

This post is prompted by the fact that I have yet to watch any of the free RootsTech presentations that are available to watch on demand for the next year. I know that if I don’t set aside time to do it, the year will be over and I will have missed out. There are also free webinars offered monthly by the Southern California Genealogy Society and the Florida State Genealogy Society, though most of those are available live only (unless you’re a member). Those deserve a place on my schedule. (As do the piles of genealogy journals that go unread.)

If you schedule time for genealogy education, you’re much more likely to do it. Your future self will thank you!

Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash