Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

September 30 x 30 check-in

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It’s the middle of the September 30 x 30 challenge and it’s time to check in. How’s your month going?

When I first proposed doing a challenge this month, I thought it would help me feel connected to my father, who died on August 20. One of my wise commenters, Marian, suggested that I go easy on myself this month. I so appreciated that because, as it’s turned out, my days are far from normal and doing research, while enjoyable, hasn’t been easy. My brother is visiting from Australia, my mind isn’t as sharp as usual, and I have myriad estate-related tasks on my plate. So in fact, I’ve researched only a handful of days.

I hope your month is going better! If you’re participating in the challenge of researching or organizing for 30 minutes a day each day this month, please let us know in the comments how it’s going!

Let’s do a September 30 x 30 challenge!

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I apologize for my absence over the last few weeks. My father, Gene Adams, who was just three weeks shy of his 92nd birthday, passed away on 20 August 20 2022. I am still in Walla Walla, Washington, handling arrangements. The memorial service will be held on 1 September 2022 (we waited until my brother could get here from Australia).

I can think of no better way to honor him than by focusing on researching his family in September. It will be a great way for me to get back into the swing of genealogy research, after work- and family-related interruptions. And it will keep him present in my life on a daily basis (not that he wouldn’t be otherwise).

So I’m committing to doing 30 minutes of genealogy research a day for 30 days. I probably won’t start until September 3, because I’ll be flying back to St. Louis on the September 2. Would you like to join me? If so, please comment below. I find these challenges to be a great way to keep me focused on my research.

Finding time to research

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Ticking clockI’ve been having a frustrating month in terms of my genealogy research. I’m managing a complicated, multiple-destination move from a very large house for one of my organizing clients and simply don’t have much time left in my day for enjoyable things like genealogy research. (Luckily, I love this client and I love managing complicated moves.) Today, I’m adapting a blog post I wrote back in 2015 because the message resonates with me so much.

I love doing genealogy research. It’s a fairly big part of my life—because of this blog I actually think about my family research quite a lot. But I don’t always get to research as often as I’d like. And that’s a shame, because researching my family history feeds my soul.

We’re all busy with the daily activities of life. Throw kids, aging parents, demanding work, needy spouses or sick pets into the mix and sometimes it feels like we don’t have any time to do those things that really nourish us.

I believe that doing those things is really important for self care. So how can we find the time?

Time management is all about managing priorities. If you put everyone’s needs before your own, all you’ll be doing is putting out fires. And that’s not good for you. So I think it’s important to figure out little pockets of time that you can set aside as “me time.” During that special time, you can do that thing that keeps you going and that feeds your soul.

How can you find some pockets of time when you’re already so busy?

  • Get up a half hour early to do soul-nourishing activities
  • Drop an activity that you’re doing because you think you should, not because you want to
  • If you’re a TV watcher, have a no-TV day each week and put that time toward your desired activity
  • Find people who also do what you want to do (like a knitting group) and agree to do that activity together.
  • Block off time on your calendar to do something that feeds your soul
  • Explain to your family your need to have to time of your own and arrange for a redistribution of chores

The list could go on. Perhaps you just need to be a little creative.

If you’re saying to yourself, I can’t take time out for myself while my house is messy…that’ll have to wait until I get organized then please stop. It breaks my heart when people stop their messy homes from allowing them to live. Sure, work on your home, bit by bit (or hire someone to help you), but reward your efforts with some soul-nourishing activity.

Our lives our important and they should be as happy and fulfilling as possible. I’m a firm believer that we can take control of our time and do those things that bring fulfillment. If genealogy is important to you, perhaps you can find little pockets of time here and there to get back in touch (and stay in touch!) with your ancestors.

Can you make some time for yourself this weekend?

Photo by R.L. Hyde via Flickr

June 30 x 30 wrap-up

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Now that the June 30 x 30 challenge is in the rear view mirror, it’s time to report in. How did it go? Were you able to research or organize every day this month? And did you get in 15 hours?

I’ve definitely had better months. I saw the handwriting on the wall mid-month and relaxed my goal to a total of four hours for the last two weeks. I did manage to achieve that, I believe. I tried hard to do a little something every day, and I probably did some research ten out of the last 14 days. I did have a couple of long sessions, so I got in those four hours.

My current project is processing the documents I found in my father’s and aunt’s homes. I did the initial sort when the boxes arrived, so all I have to do now is go to the file containing the ten items I’d selected to act on and pick one or more to enter into my Reunion database. I think I’ve emptied and refilled the action file three times now, so I’ve plowed through at least 30 documents.

Having the challenge definitely helped me get more done than I otherwise would have in a crazy busy month. I’m glad I did it! I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to devote more time to research during the next 30 x 30 challenge, which will be in August or September. And I do plan to try to get some research done in July as well.

If you participated in this challenge (or even if you didn’t), please let us know in the comments how your research month was!

Join the mailing list!

When you first join the list, I’ll send you a few emails to help you organize your family history. After that you’ll hear from me at the end of every month when I send an email with links to that month’s posts. And every now and then, I’ll let you know when I have something special to promote.