Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

My pause on searching: Easier said than done

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Just over a week ago, in my post called Searcher vs. researcher, I vowed to get through the backlog of documents I had downloaded but never processed and to do no online searching until the backlog was gone. I’ll confess to you that my resolve not to search dissolved the very first day.

My curiosity about certain things that came up while I was processing my backlogged documents could not be satisfied by merely jotting down a note on my follow-up task list. So I quickly amended the vow I’d made to myself. Now, I try not to do any searching and downloading but when I do, I process the new document during the session in which I download it.

This is working out well. I have managed to resist the temptation to search but every now and then I go for it. (For example, when I’m processing a Washington state marriage certificate and I know that Washington marriage license applications, which have more interesting information, are also easily found.)

Today, in processing an 1880 census, a grandchild appeared living with his widowed grandmother and I need to verify whose parent that grandchild is before I can add the grandchild to my genealogy software and consider the census document processed. That’s going to require a little searching online tomorrow and I’m okay with that.

So far, this backlog-busting project is going well. I’ve reduced my backlog by 25 documents in the last ten days and have 78 documents in my backlog remaining. It’s feeling good!

Searcher vs. researcher

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Genealogy searcher vs researcherI’ve been thinking a lot lately about the difference between being a genealogy searcher and being a genealogy researcher. It’s so much fun to go online and track down documents and attach them to a tree or download them. (I know some people like to print them, but not me.) Because so many searchers attach documents to Ancestry trees without evaluating them we end up with an alarming number of inaccurate trees there.

That’s being a searcher. In my opinion, we’re not really researchers unless we analyze the documents we find so that we know they pertain to the person we’re researching, then go through them with a fine-toothed comb, extracting information and storing that data somewhere–with a source citation.

As I’ve written in my post on how I process a downloaded document, I have a digital workflow for the documents I find online, after I determine they belong to my ancestor. In short, I create a source citation and analyze and extract all information from the document and enter that information into my genealogy software. (I use Reunion). I then file the document. On a good day, I process each document as soon as I find it. That’s always my goal.

But the reality is that, especially since I tend to research in short spurts (like 30 minutes a day), I sometimes end up with documents on my hard drive that I’ve downloaded but not yet processed. That’s been happening a lot recently. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I have over 100 documents that I have downloaded that are hanging out on my hard drive, waiting for me process. (At least I changed the file name when I downloaded the documents, so I know at a glance what they are.)

The thing is, these documents won’t do me any good until I process them. I need to read and analyze them and add all facts (with source citation) to my genealogy software in order to benefit from them. But it’s so hard to resist searching, especially when search possibilities pop to mind as I read the downloaded documents.

I want to be a researcher, not a mere searcher. So here’s my vow:

Until the backlog is gone, I will not download any more genealogy documents to my hard drive. I also won’t go to any libraries and bring home paper documents. When searches pop to mind, I will store them in the appropriate follow up notebook in  Evernote to look at when the backlog is gone.

I’m hoping to take a research trip to Kentucky in October. This adds extra urgency to my resolve to get rid of my backlog. You can bet I’ll post here when the backlog is gone!

Do any of you have this particular challenge? Let me know if you’d like to join me in resolving to do no more searching until your backlog of documents you’ve already found is gone. I’d love the company!

Reviewing my source documents

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Last weekend I had the great fortune to hear genealogist and speaker Amy Johnson Crow give several talks at the Missouri State Genealogical Association‘s terrific conference. One of her talks was called “How to Milk a Source for All It’s Worth” and in it she shared tips and techniques for harvesting every bit of information you can from a source.

That got me thinking about the source documents I had found early on in my genealogy research, six or seven years ago. Back then, I was focusing on direct-line ancestors, so I’m sure I left a lot of information on the table. Rather than entering every scrap of information into my genealogy database (Reunion), I would have just glossed over it.

That was confirmed yesterday when I was going over an Alabama Census of Confederate Soldiers questionnaire my 2nd great grandfather, Laban Taylor Rasco (1844-1926) had filled out in 1921. I had found that source in 2012. (It’s source #127 in my database; I now have 834 sources.) I was shocked to see that I hadn’t recorded the information about his living children that was shared in that questionnaire. They were in my tree, because I’d added them at a later date, but back in 2012 I just wasn’t adding collateral lines. (I know, I was short-sighted.)

So I started adding that info and in doing so solved a little mystery. My grandmother Beatrix Rasco Adams, who was born in 1907, was living in Memphis, Texas, with her family on the 1920 census. In 1910, they were in Alabama, where she was born, and in the 1930 census they were in Washington state, where she lived the rest of her life. I never knew why they lived in Texas in 1920 (though I didn’t try very hard to find out). But I learned yesterday by focusing on that Confederate census, that her uncle, Joseph Taylor Rasco (1872-1964) was living in Memphis, Texas in 1921 and is nearby in the 1910 and 1920 censuses. Her family must have joined him. Mystery solved, or at least illuminated.

That made me realize that I have a lot of work to do with the source documentation that I have already downloaded and entered into Reunion. My genealogy research skills have improved so much that I find myself drawn to look at all those less recently found documents so I can pick all the meat off the bones.

Two summers ago, I started systematically going through my source documentation, primarily to correct the citations and to make sure that each source document was attached as a multimedia file to the source record in Reunion. At the time, I had 300 sources in my database. I got through Source #85 by the time I stalled out on that particular endeavor.

Fast forward two years and I now have an additional 500+ more sources, but I’m hopeful that the last several hundred were much better analyzed.

Last month, I shifted my focus to my father’s maternal line, the Rascos, and plan to work on them for the rest of 2018. So this is what I’ve decided to do: I’ve created a list of all the sources that pertain to the Rascos and I’m planning to systematically check each source record, making sure the citation is correct, that the source document is attached to the source record, and that all possible information is gleaned. When I see clues for further research within a document, I will either make a note of it in Evernote or, depending on time constraints and my whims, go ahead and pursue that clue.

I think this process will give me more confidence in my source citations and it will help me feel comfortable that my research is thorough–plus it will doubtless garner a lot more facts to add to my database! I also love that it will give me an easy starting point for research each day.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

July 30 x 30 wrap up

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It’s the end of the month! The 30 x 30 challenge officially ended yesterday. I wanted to check in today and out how this summer’s challenge went. Were you able to do something genealogy-related every day for 30 days? Please report in the comments!

I’ll start: The challenge was tremendous for me. It was just what I needed to refocus. Having made this commitment, I made sure to do the research every morning, before I got going with other stuff during the day. I find that if I want to get something done, I need to do it first thing in the morning.

Whereas prior to this challenge, according to my research log, I hadn’t researched in two weeks, this month I blogged each and every day, save one. I did have one early-morning client appointment that prompted me to eschew research until later in the day. But after eight hours of leading a decluttering team that day, I was too brain dead to research. So I did miss one day. But overall I felt great about the challenge.

I notice that when I research a little bit every day, I stay in touch with my research and I don’t get overwhelmed. Also with daily research I always know what I’m going to work on when I get started (since it’s been just a day since my last session). That makes makes getting started much easier. It’s a huge benefit to daily research.

Even though the challenge is officially over, I’m going to try to continue with the daily research.

I’d love to hear how it went for those of you who decided to participate this month!