Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Preparing for my repository trip

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Preparing for a genealogy research tripOn August 14, less than two weeks from now, I leave for my week-long research excursion to the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, a six-hour drive from my home in St. Louis. This is a National Genealogical Society research trip. I paid $750 (including hotel) and I am really excited to get my money’s worth!

I know I need to spend some time preparing so that my time there is well spent. With all the possibilities of things to research, narrowing it down is one of my biggest challenges. I went to a talk at the Midwestern Roots Family History and Genealogy Conference earlier this month on preparing for a repository trip (see my last post), so I have a game plan. After hearing that talk, as well as a talk on the library’s holdings, I’m planning to focus my research on one locality. I have a cluster of ancestors who lived in Kentucky in the 1800s to early 1900s. I’m going to focus on McLean and Muhlenberg Counties.

I have a multi-pronged approach to this research preparation:

  • Searching the library’s holdings for information on this locality and adding to a spreadsheet of specific books and microfilm rolls I want to look at.
  • Making sure the items I’ve found aren’t readily available on the internet, so I know my time at the library is spent looking at resources I can’t readily find elsewhere.
  • Looking through my existing research for holes, mysteries, and clues I could explore at the library. I’m adding those to a separate sheet on the spreadsheet. I won’t necessarily ignore non-Kentucky mysteries, but I’ll put them lower on my priority list.
  • I also plan to go through my paper files for those ancestors to make sure there aren’t any resources there that I didn’t manage to get on my hard drive. I’m thinking that I’ll take along my computer, but not my paper files, so I’ll try to scan and file anything I’d missed.

That’s a pretty labor-intensive list for two weeks but I’m trying to do a little each day and also spend more time with it on the weekends. I know that any effort at all will be beneficial, even if I don’t get to all of it.

I love the idea of homing in on one locality. That’s helping me stay focused and not feel overwhelmed.

Do any of you experienced researchers have any advice for me that you’d like to share?

Just a little bit counts

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10minutetimerI’ve been trying hard to adhere to my new routine of doing genealogy research first thing in the morning. The trouble is that some mornings are busier than others. When I have an 8:30 client appointment it can be challenging for me to find the time to do research. My genealogy research is important to me, but it’s not urgent.

For the last month, I’ve done at least a little research almost every morning. I’ll set my timer for as little as ten minutes and research for that short amount of time. Since my current project is systematically going through my source documentation–which is actually proving to be really interesting and enjoyable–I know exactly where to start and I know that a little bit of focused time will move me along.

What I’ve discovered in doing this is that the benefit goes beyond furthering my research. Keeping myself engaged in my research on a daily basis makes me more excited to work on it. It also makes me feel more connected to my ancestors and helps me remember names and dates.

For the first half of the year I thought a lot about my genealogy research but I didn’t do a lot of it. Mostly I just felt anxious or guilty about not taking the time to work on it. These days, I’m still thinking a lot about it, but my thoughts are happy and productive. That’s a wonderful shift.

Doing just a tiny bit of daily action reaps big results. This is true in family history research. It’s also true in organizing your family history research. And let’s face it–it’s true in many other aspects of life, like exercise and healthy eating.

Daily habits are the foundation of an easy life. I’ve said that for years as a professional organizer. Now I’m seeing it come true in my genealogy research. I love it!

Doing research first thing in the morning

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Doing genealogy first thing in the morningI’ve been frustrated this year by the small amount of time I’ve spent researching. I do love it, but between a new puppy, a kitchen renovation and a busy business, I just wasn’t making the time for it. It felt like the day just wasn’t long enough to squeeze it in.

One thing I’ve discovered is that if I get out of the swing of researching, it’s harder for me to jump back in. When I research infrequently, I don’t have a burning desire to solve a particular mystery. Then it’s hard to get started. So for me regular research, even just a few minutes at a time, is really beneficial.

In the last two weeks, I’ve been doing a half hour (or even 15 minutes) of research first thing in the morning. It happens before email, before blogging, before Facebook. I’ll set a timer and start on it while I’m drinking my coffee. I stop when the timer goes off. It’s a fabulous way to start the day–I feel I’ve accomplished something and I get to work on something I enjoy. Best of all, I’ve stopped beating myself up over not researching.

I’m helped by the fact that my current project is checking my source documentation, which lends itself to short bursts of activity. But if I weren’t doing that, I could still easily jump into my research, because it’s top of mind (since I’m working on it daily).

We’ll see how long this lasts, but until life gets crazy again (which it inevitably will), I think this one little adjustment to my schedule will reap great benefits.

Photo by Thomas Ulrich via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

Checking my sources

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Verifying my sourcesThis year I’ve been having the hardest time figuring out what I want to focus on in my genealogy research sessions. I think part of the problem is that I’ve also had trouble finding time to research, so it’s been more sporadic. And when I do have time, then I don’t know what to work on.

A couple of years ago, I tried focusing on a different line each quarter. That was successful, but this year I’m not researching frequently enough to make that work. Last year, I was really focused on processing and transcribing my ancestors’ Civil War pension files. That was great too, but I’m wanting to mix it up a bit more these days.

I know I need to figure out what I want to focus on during my week at the Allen County Library in August, which means that I feel the need to revisit my ancestors and remind myself of my mysteries.

So I lit on a strategy that, for the moment anyway, is working well for me. (And I also came up with a strategy that’s allowing me to research more frequently–more on that in the next post.) Here’s what I’m doing:

I’m going through all my sources in the Reunion family-tree software, checking the format, and attaching an image of the source to the source entry.

I exported the list of my 300 sources as an rtf file then opened the file in Evernote. I made the type big enough to read easily, then turned it one long bullet list with checkboxes for bullets. One by one, I’m going down the list and looking at each source and at the document that goes with the source. I’m checking the usage of the source. I attach the document as a multimedia file (leaving it on my hard drive in its folder, organized by surname and individual).  I’m getting reacquainted with my ancestors. And it’s been really fun.

I’m seeing several benefits to this process:

  • I know exactly where to start when I sit down to do research.
  • I’m cleaning up some formatting issues, since I became better at source documentation over time (so I’ve been able to make entries more consistent).
  • I’m making a list of things to investigate further, which will be helpful in planning my research trip.
  • I’m finding things I missed in the source documents the first time around.
  • I’m making new discoveries as I go along.
  • I get to work on a variety of ancestors every day, which suits me these days.
  • I see tangible progress every session.
  • I can make progress in just a few minutes, which is great when I don’t have a lot of time to research.
  • I’ve found that some electronic files had not been filed correctly and I’ve been able to refile them.
  • I end up with a wonderfully organized source list.
  • It’s systematic and enjoyable. I love checking off the box when I’m finished with that source!

If I wanted to focus on the sources of a single family, Reunion makes that easy for me. (I just click on “Family” rather than “All” in the sources list.) But for me, right now, mixing up the families by checking the sources in the order in which I entered them is working out nicely.

So far, I’ve checked off 20 of my now-306 sources. (I’ve made a few discoveries in the process, so I’ve added a few sources.) I’ve been doing a little a day for the last five days or so. Clearly it’s not fast work (though it may get faster as my sourcing gets better). But it’s beneficial and enjoyable. Hooray!