New Year, New Goals

In 2015 I started a “Do-Over” on my Genealogy Research, or at least that was my intention.

I read Thomas MacEntee’s posts, participated in discussions in the Genealogy Do-Over Facebook Group, did some of the “assignments,” but never made much progress in actually working on my research.

Some of that is I took on outside responsibilities to a couple of different organizations. Both organizations are good and worthwhile, but they took time and energy away from being able to do what I really wanted to be doing.

I allowed the needs and priorities of the organizations to set the priorities in my life (never a good thing when we allow outside things to sent our priorities!).

They took priority over hobbies, over my responsibilities in my home, and even over my health. As a result I lost touch with good friends, my home became disorganized, my finances suffered because I spent money I couldn’t afford to spend, and my health issues worsened. I have resigned from both organizations, have been trying to recover some level of my health back, and have tightened my financial belt so I can get my life back in balance.

So here I am in January 2021 ready to review the genealogy goals I set for 2015 so I can set some REALISTIC weekly and monthly goals to pursue this year. I shared my master list of goals in a December 2014 post, as well as a number of posts about my prep work for the do-over throughout 2015 and beyond if you are interested in reading through them. They do contain some good ideas and tips so going back and reading them may be helpful to you. In fact I am going to go back and read them myself to encourage and inspire me.

I think for a weekly goal I am going to say I want to spend 30 minutes three times a week working on something regarding my personal genealogy research.

Chances are if I start working on my research I will end up spending more than 30 minutes on it, but if I give myself a small goal I should be able to meet it. Setting a big goal means other things may interfere with achieving my goal and then I will get discouraged and give up. I know me.

I think for a monthly goal I am going to read at least one article in my Family Tree Magazine and watch one genealogy podcast. Again, small goals that I can actually do even when my health isn’t good.

I would like to say I will post on my blog weekly, but maybe I better start with committing to one blog post a month and then increase the frequency as I build habits.

What are your genealogy goals this coming year?

Genealogy Do-Over 2018 Reboot

I joined Thomas MacEntee's Facebook Genealogy Do-Over Group at the end of Dec 2014, basically when we were preparing for the first go through of Thomas' Do-Over process.

Well, that first quarter I managed to pack up all my genealogy papers.

I also managed to come up with HUGE list of goals, both short term and long term.

I wrote up my "Warm Up Exercises"

And a research flow chart

I learned lots by reading all the posts and joining in conversations, but did very little towards actually DOING my Research over. I did post on this blog a few times about the Do-Over starting in December 2014 if you are interested in the little progress I made last time.

I plan on spending this next year filling in the holes in my genealogy knowledge and skills. I hope to start the process of becoming a Certified Genealogist in 2019. Figure this is a good time to get serious about actually DOING the Do-Over.

One, this will make sure my personal tree is in good shape. And two, this will help me put the new skills I am trying to learn into practice.

It helps that I have managed to let go of an outside responsibility that was taking a lot of my free time. I have also been working on whittling down the piles of things that have been accumulating around here while I was busy with outside things. I actually have my laptop sitting on the desk in my "Office" (also known as the spare room)! The space still has a lot of work to do to make it a really effective work area. But I have made some good progress on it.

I am putting this on my blog hoping that maybe it will help make me more accountable. Anyone want to join me in rebooting (or starting) a Do-Over with their Genealogy?

Here is to a productive 2018!

Writing My Life Story

I am working on writing my life story. In some ways that is what genealogy is all about; writing the story of the life of my family: where they came from, who they were, what happened to them in their journey. But what about my life, my journey? Wouldn't I be the best one to tell that story rather than some as yet unborn descendant?

My mom was also very interested in learning the history of her family, yet when she found out she was dying of cancer and I wanted to get HER story she wasn't interested in working on that. She felt it was no longer important. I would love to have her story in her words, not only for myself but for my children who loved her, and her great grandchildren who never had the opportunity to meet her. Only I didn't have the words to explain to her that it was important to me!

There are others in my family tree that I wish so much I had a written copy of their story. Sadly, I don't.

A couple of things happened this year that gave me the push to finally start putting pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard) and start writing the story of MY life. The first was Thomas McEntee's Genealogy Do-Over Project. I decided if I really was going to start over at the beginning, which means starting with me, I needed to write my story before it was too late. The other push was joining Camp NaNoWriMo in July. I ended up writing 50,000 words in one month. It showed me I could do it, IF I just sat down for an hour a day and typed.

Granted some of those 50,000 words are just a rough chronological outline with very few details. But it is 50,000 more words than when I started. Have I kept it up? Sadly, no. But I am trying to get back into routines now that the days are turning cooler, or at least the nights are. We have had some really beautiful days recently, more like Indian Summer than fall.

I have a lot more words to put down before I am ready to go back and start editing it. But I will get there, as long as God allows me enough days to get it done. But since none of us are promised tomorrow, I am trying not to put off those things that are important to me.

I thought I would share the introduction of my "story" with you, in hopes that it might encourage you to also write your story.

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Who Am I?

By Linda D Newman

I have been putting off writing my story for our family history, after all who would be interested in me and my story? I am just a regular person. I don’t think I am anything special. I haven’t done anything extraordinary. Although, when sharing this introduction with my friend Rochelle, she scolded me for thinking I wasn’t anything special or extraordinary. She said, “You are special, you are extraordinary. The things you do and have done are extraordinary.” I do know that I am special in the sense that I am a unique individual created in God’s image, but beyond that I don’t stand out from the other more than seven billion people on earth (except to those who know me personally). I guess I will leave it you to you the reader to make your own judgments about whether or not I am extraordinary.

Then I think about what I would give to be able to read about one of my ancestors. Especially something they had written themselves so that I could get to know them as a person and not just know the names, dates, and places of their life. I would love to have them tell me about what they believed, the things they experienced, what a typical day was like, the important things that happened in their lifetime and their reactions to them.

So based on my desire to get to know my ancestors better, I figure at some point one of my descendants might say, “Who is this Linda person who is my great grandmother? What was she like? What was life like for her?” I hope that this piece will, at least in part, answer some of the questions my grandchildren and their children may one day have about me and my life. That I can flesh out my life for them, instead of just leaving the dry skeleton of names, dates and places.

This book will have several parts to it.

Part One will be a chronological telling of my life story.

Part Two will be my responses to the question “Who Am I?” which was a writing prompt I found on a website designed to help you write the story of your life. They said to ask yourself the question “who am I?” twenty times and write down your responses. That concept really stuck with me, and I thought it would be a good way to maybe explore parts of me and my life that might not get covered in a chronological style telling of my story.

Finally, Appendix A has an ancestor report, listing the basic facts of my ancestors. The names, dates and places of the major events of their life. To learn more about their stories you can read more about them in the different books about their branch of our family tree.

---

Yes, what I am doing is a major undertaking, but then I am a writer at heart. The way you decide to write your story is up to you, and even that decision tells people about who you are. If you are crafty maybe you will decide to tell your story with pictures in a carefully crafted scrapbook. If you prefer to tell you story using spoken words rather than writing, get a digital vocal recorder and start talking. When you are done you can always ask someone to transcribe it into written form, but the extra special part of leaving a digital recording is that your descendants will be able to actually HEAR your story in your own voice.

But whatever form you decide to use to share your life story I encourage you to start today so that one day your descendant aren't saying, "I wish I knew more about my grandparents and what their life was like."

Genealogy Do Over Week Two

Thomas McEntee's topics for Week Two are:
1) Setting Research Goals,
2) Conducting Self Interview
3) Conducting Family Interviews

In looking over my blog posts from January I see that I didn't blog anything about these topics. So let's see what I can manage to do this time through.

Thomas talks about setting research goals in Week Two, but what does he mean about setting research goals? In reading Thomas' blog I find that he is talking about making specific research goals to prove (or disprove) facts about an individual.

I find that I was ahead of the game on this part, a few years ago I had created a template for making research plans to help in my research. Now, I don't have research plans created for very many people at this point, but I do have one for my great grandmother and some of her immediate family, because I have a brick wall in finding her paternal grandparents. I have found my research plan is a great way to see what I know as well as what I don't know, then to plan what and where I am going to look next.

I think that doing one of those research plans on myself would satisfy the "conduct a self interview" part of this week's assignment. I am sure everyone will understand that I am not going to post that research plan online. The names, dates, and places it would contain would be giving away too much personal information on myself and my living family members. But I encourage you to also make a research plan with yourself as the person being researched.

I know many of us haven't fully written out our lives, even though when anyone is starting to work on their family tree the advice is always to start with ourselves. So we put our names, birth date and birth place, then we add our spouses, children, parents, siblings. But do we remember to add all the little things to our own profile that fill out the skeleton of names dates and places to make us a fully fleshed out person to those who will look at our work years from now?

I am taking the time now to start over and do this right. And that means starting with myself and putting in ALL the facts with proper sources and citations. And to do that I need to make a research plan for myself to remind me of all the documentation I need to find about my life.

I have a couple of maternal aunts and one maternal uncle still living, and the widow of my paternal uncle that I should interview before I lose those resources. I need to find a way to do that sooner rather than later. Two are active online so they will be easiest to chat with, the other two will take more effort on my part. I know I won't regret making the effort, I will regret it if I don't.

Here is a blank version of my research plan for your use, I have this in my word processing program which means I can type as much as I want under each heading:

Bright Shiny Objects

Bright Shiny Objects (BSO) catch our eye, I think it is human nature. In the Genealogy Do-Over Facebook group I have also heard some people call them rabbit holes. They have the potential to totally distract us from what we are trying to do, IF we let them. The trick is to acknowledge them without letting them divert us from what we are trying to do.

Let's start with an example, then we can talk about some of the ways to acknowledge a BSO without allowing it to get us off track of our current research goal.

Let's say my goal is to research everything I can find on my grandfather Frederick John Newman's WWI military service. My grandfather had a brother, Eric Alexander Newman, who also served in WWI. Both of them were born in England and living in the USA at the time period I am searching. Let's say I am on ancestry.com and I am searching for Frederick Newman in the military records. Chances are Eric's name will also pop up in search results.

It might be tempting to look at both Frederick's and Eric's results. But that isn't the goal for this search, only Frederick's military service is. Chances are if I click on something for Eric I will then see the "you might also be interested it" type of links, then there I go chasing those bright shiny objects relating to my great uncle and totally lose focus. Two hours later I will find that not only have I not found anything about my grandfather but I might not even be looking at things that relate to my great uncle but some distant relative in England!

You might be saying "But what's a person to do when those BSO cross my path?" Let's discuss strategies....

First and foremost, I hope before you start you have a research plan so you know the "Who, What, Where, When, How/Why" of your search. This allows you to focus your search so that you can make real progress, instead of wandering aimlessly through the ancestry website (or the findmypast. familysearch, genealogybank, etc websites).

Second comes some sort of research log.

I have to admit in my past research I have been BAD about this step. I can't tell you how much wasted time this has caused as I repeat searches for things I already have, or repeating searches with parameters that did not produce results instead of trying new parameters. Part of my problem with research logs has always been that those printed versions always seem to have such small boxes there was no way to efficiently use them, at least for me.

Genealogy Do-Over has encouraged me to start experimenting using a spreadsheet for my research log.

A spreadsheet allows me to make the boxes whatever size I need them to be (plus typing tends to take up less space than my handwriting). It also allows me to move columns around until I find a format that works for me WITHOUT losing the data that is already in the database. Plus I can sort by the different columns. Meaning if I want to find all my research on an individual I can sort by name. If I want to see all the vital records I have I can sort by Record Type. If I want to see all the records I have found on Ancestry I can sort by that. All of this without having to rewrite (or retype) lists or losing any information.

One of the benefits of using a spreadsheet program, especially when it comes to those BSO's, is I can have different pages in my document. I can have a page for my research log, or I can have separate pages for the different surnames.

I can also have a page for my to do list. This is where I can list those bright shiny objects. I can put their name as the site lists them and any other identifying information about that potential document. You can even copy and paste the information, including the url, to help you find the information again. Then I can go right back to working on my goal for that day's research without worrying about whether or not I will be able to find the information about that other potential lead at a later time.

If you have other ideas and suggestions on how to deal with BSO please feel free to share them in the comments section.

Rebooting my Genealogy Do-Over

Thomas McEntee has just started his fourth cycle of his Genealogy Do-Over Program. Each cycle lasts just 13 weeks.

I was so psyched when I first heard of his project late December 2014. I thought, "This is just what I need to get my personal genealogy project into shape! I can go through my research and my mom's research and make it into one coherent project." Well, life and health interfered.

I had surgery in March. Then after I was finally feeling healed from that I fell and hurt my ribs. Plus I started on Cymbalta for my Fibromyalgia. Now that med may work great for some, but for me it caused major depression like I had never experienced in my life!

Ribs are healed. I am off the Cymbalta and my moods are finally back to normal. So here I am ready to get back into the swing of things.

I decided since Thomas is just starting another cycle I will start back at Week One too. This will allow me to refresh my memory about what I am doing and how I want to proceed. Week One's topics/assignments are:
1) Setting Previous Research Aside,
2) Preparing to Research, and
3) Establishing Base Practices and Guidelines

Well, I had set aside my research in January, so that was easy.

Preparing to Research?!?! Aren't you supposed to just decide to open Ancestry and randomly search? I am just joking, I think. But all too often that is what I have done. I have some time, my mind wanders to the subject of my family history and I open up my tree in Family Tree Maker and log into Ancestry.com.

In the discussion of topic 2 "Preparing to Research" Thomas mentioned having a "Warm Up Routine" and that got me to thinking. I know an athlete should warm up his muscles in preparation of working out. I know a singer warms up their vocal cords before singing (or they should). What do I, as a genealogist, need to do to be "warmed up" or prepared to research?

From thinking about that came this first document, "Linda's Warm-Up Exercises." Use my list as a starting place for you to think about what you want to have on your list.

The final topic for Week One is about establishing Base Practices and Guidelines. I had written my "Base Practices and Guidelines," back in January so I decided to just review what I had already written.

1. Track ALL work! including dead ends, negative results and non-productive searches. (If non-productive make a notation of why it was non-productive: tired? interrupted? bad copy you couldn't read? Also make a record of what search terms you used -- later on you can go back and see that you didn't try wildcards, or a certain wildcard pattern, or you didn't swap the surname and given name.)
2. Diligence and integrity are essential in doing genealogy research.
3. Always use proper source citation when entering information, if it doesn't have a source it doesn't belong in the database!
4. Take the time to do a careful and thorough search, whether in a database or on a document. Don't rush you may miss something important. If it takes an hour to carefully look at 1 document, then that is what it takes, there will always be another day to look at other documents.
5. Don't get sidetracked by shiny objects. Write them down to look at later, stick with your research plan for that day.
6. Stop working on genealogy by 11 pm so you can get to bed at a halfway reasonable hour.

For the most part I think what I had was pretty solid, but that maybe it needed just one more item.

7. Develop a work flow chart to make sure you don't skip steps when doing research and reviewing documents.

So that is where this document came from. It is a visual flow chart of the process I want to go through when doing my research. Again use this as a starting point for you to think about what steps you need to be including in research habits.

Just read a comment in the Do-Over Facebook Group about a "Cool Down" Routine for what they will do at the end of each research session. I will have to think on that idea and come up with something for that too I think.

What's in your toolbox?

It's a new day, new week, new month.... the new "assignment" for week 5 of the do-over is: Building a Research Toolbox and Citing Sources.

Building a Research Toolbox basically means locating websites that will be useful to you in your research and then organizing the list in such a way that you can actually FIND the link that you are needing. One way to do that is to make folders in your browser's favorite or bookmark list to organize them. Another option is to use a spreadsheet like Excel to organize them. Or you can use a program such as Evernote or One Note to organize them. Another choice would be to share them on your blog so that others can also benefit from your work.

The assignment is to figure out what would work best with your style of working, and then be consistent in your use of it. You also have to be able to keep your links up to date and be able to remove links that no longer work. Thomas MacEntee shared with us a free program called AM-Deadlink used to verify links in your current bookmarks (Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome) or links pasted into a text file.

I downloaded the program and when I ran it I did find a couple of deadlinks, but not too many. So in that aspect I am doing good. I have decided that I will just get all my bookmarked sites together in one browser (I have IE, Firefox and Chrome all installed on my computer and I have 2 computers so have a bit of combining to do). Once they are all in one browser I will then get them organized in folders and subfolders to make it easier to locate the links that I want easily.

Once I get it all organized I will share my personal toolbox with you. It may take me a bit to get it done but hopefully sometime this week I will be able to say I have finished this part of this assignment.

My progress on the Genealogy Do-Over

Technically we are into week four of the do-over, but that is not where I am at yet. And that is ok with me because I know I need to get some basics in place before I get too deeply involved with working on research.

The first thing I have to do is make sure the space I am going to be working in is set up in such a way that I can function in it. That means I am taking some time to get my house in order, in between taking care of some health issues as well as watching my granddaughter while her mom is at work.

While I can work with some disorder around me, I know I will function better if part of my mind isn't worried about the dishes in the sink, or the laundry that needs doing. And I know I can make better progress if I don't have to stop and search for a pencil or pad of paper when I want to jot down a note.

So, I am going back to Step 0 as some have described it and getting my home in order.

I have managed to get my budget in order for the coming year.

I have set up a project management workbook in Excel to make sure I am getting life's to do thing taken care of (thank you Thomas MacEntee for sharing your knowledge and expertise).

I am working on getting some health issues taken care of.

I am working on getting the room that will be my office space clean up and organized so that I have a functionable space.

I have written a list of why I am doing genealogy (see previous post) and I have written a list of my short and long term goals for my research (see my post of 29 Dec 2014)

I am reading the posts in the Genealogy Do-Over Facebook group, as well as some of the blogs written by others that are undertaking this journey. I am learning lots from doing that.

This is all progress. And if it isn't as fast as some would do it (or even as fast as I would ideally like to be able to do it), it is getting done. After all slow and steady wins the race, and this is a marathon not a sprint! :)

Why do I do Genealogy?

So why do I do genealogy? Maybe that is where I need to start my do-over. Making a clear statement of the why behind the search. It will help me figure out what direction I am going and the steps I need to reach my destination, or goal.

I actually have a couple of base goals.

Goal One - to get to know who I came from. The names, dates and places are just a start. I also want to know the who the people are beyond the names. What shaped their lives? What were their daily lives like? What were their interests and beliefs?

Goal Two - to be able to share my discoveries with my family. And not just my immediate family, but the extended family of cousins as well as any 2nd and 3rd cousins I can locate, because it is a part of their family story too.

Goal Three - to be able to leave a record of me and who I am in my words, in my voice, so that my children, grandchildren and someday my great grandchildren can know the who I am beyond just a name.

Goal Four - To help others learn about their family by sharing my knowledge and skills in helping them find their roots.

If you are working on your genealogy, what is your why?

Reorganizing my computer files

One of the things I am working on during this Genealogy Do-Over is getting the files on my computer a bit more organized. To do that I have been considering what would work best for ME. At the moment this is how I have decided to set things up....

I have used the program Folder Marker and used a tree icon for any folder dealing with genealogy. I have started a new folder for doing the Do-over which I have named Genealogy Do-Over

Within the Genealogy Do-Over Folder I have a Folder for my tree, and a Folder for my exhusband's family (he is the father of my children so they will want his side of the family too). I again used Folder Marker to change the color on the folders so that it is easier to see which folder is which.

In each of those folders I have added two folders which I named Places and Surnames. The folder named Places will be for general information about the places my families lived, but don't necessarily mention my families specifically. I will go from Larger to smaller, for example United States > California > Sierra County > Sierra City.

Within the Surnames folder I will make folders for each surname within my tree. Then within the individual surname folders I have a folder for Documents. (Notice I put an underscore before the name, this is so that folder will always be at the top of the list.) In the Documents folder I have 22 subfolders. This where I will put the various documents that have to do with that surname. The reason for this set up is that I have surname binders and those are the tabs I have in the binders. So to me it made sense to use the same set up on my computer.

I have those folders named: General Surname Info, Birth, Marriage, Death, Obituaries, Cemetery Records, Probate, Census, Church, City Directories, Court Records, Divorce Records, Family Correspondence, Land Records, Military Service Records, Military Pension Records, Naturalization Records, Newspaper Items, Passenger Lists, School Records, Tax Records, Voter Records. You will notice that I put a number at the beginning of each name, this is to force them to stay in the order I want them listed (which is the same order that I have the tabs in my binders) rather than reverting to Alphabetical Order.

Also in the individual surname's folders I will make a folder for each individual person. I will again use Folder Marker to change the color of the folders to make them more distinct from the Documents folder. In the individual person's folder I will put anything that deals specifically with them but doesn't belong in one of the documents folderss, for example the research plan for that person.

As time goes on and I am working with this set up I may end up changing things, but for now I think this set up will work. Remember when setting up your organizational ideas to consider how YOU work because it doesn't make any difference how things are set up if you don't use it because it doesn't make sense to you!

Getting ready for Do-Over

Thomas MacEntee's Genealogy Do-Over starts on Friday, January 2nd.

I have been doing some thinking about file naming (still haven't totally decided on how I will do that, need to really sit there and consider the options to decide which is most natural to the way I do things so I will be able to use it in a consistent manner).

I do know I am going to totally start over with a brand new tree using the same genealogy software, Family Tree Maker 2014.

I am starting a brand new tree because I have several trees due to computer/software glitches that wanted me to open the tree with a new name. Plus some of it is my mom's research from before she died in 1997 and some of it is my research. So for me it is easier to start new and go through every document, every note, one by one and make sure everything is correct and properly cited than to try and go back and just review and try and correct errors in the existing database(s). (And boy is that a terrible run on sentence, but hopefully you get the jest of what I mean.)

I just ordered some banker boxes (supposed to arrive on Friday). I will take out every folder, every notebook every scrap of paper relating to genealogy from my file cabinet drawers and put them in there. Then as I go through the folders I will put them back into the filing cabinet. That way I can be sure that I have looked at each piece of information.

I will be resubscribing to Ancestry.com on January 2nd, for now probably on a month to month basis for just the US because my generation, my children's generation, my grandchildren's generation and my parents' generation have all spent their entire lives in the US. Well, except for the year my son spent in Afghanistan and the year he spent in Cuba but since that was as a member of the US Army there shouldn't be any non-US records even for him.

I do have a subscription to Genealogy Bank. Need to check and see which other services I still have current subscriptions to...

I will be taking time to really work on my genealogy this year. I am determined to make it the priority in life like it is in my mind.

I am going to read at least 1 genealogy book per month to keep my knowledge growing.

I am going to read 1 genealogy magazine a month. I have a subscription to Family Tree Magazine and am ashamed to say that there have been many issues I have looked at the front cover, then set them aside and never actually read.

I am going to take my list of genealogy goals that I posted a couple of days ago and break them down into do-able steps with a do by date for each step to help keep me moving forward. And if that means I don't stay on the same schedule as Thomas' Do-Over schedule then that is ok, I will use his information as it is applicable to my research.

Setting Genealogy Goals for 2015 (and further into the future)

One of the things that the Genealogy Do-Over has been doing for me and many others is forcing us to look at our goals and writing them down in the hopes that we can bring some order to the mess our research has become.  

Below are the goals that I have come up with so far. Yes the list is pretty extensive. No I do not think I can even come close to being able to accomplish this all in 2015. But by writing out the goals I can come up with a workable plan and can make progress in reaching those goals. I have learned from other areas to break things down into baby steps. When I just look at the big picture I can become discouraged and want to give up. When I say today I will spend 15 minutes going through 1 or 2 file folders that I can do. It is amazing how quickly those babysteps can start showing results! 

1. Find 1 or 2 others also doing this to set up a personal accountability group to keep me honest and on track. 
2. Take this list of goals and break it down to yearly, quarterly, monthly and weekly goals with some sort of checklist to help me stay on track. 
3. Set specific time aside for working on my research at least a couple of times a week. If I say it is a priority, I need to show that by actually setting aside time to work on it! 
4. Read magazines and books on the subject on a regular basis, participate in group discussions about Genealogy to keep learning new tips and tricks. 
5. Become more familiar with source citation standards so using them is 2nd nature. 
6. Set naming standards for folder and files, both digital and paper so that not only I can find what I want, but have my files organized in such a way that other will be able to use them. 
7. Develop and USE a research log.... maybe an extension of my current research plan worksheet? 
8. Create a physical file folder for each individual with an inventory sheet and a checklist of source to look for sheet. As research plans are made paper copies will also be placed into this folder. 
9. Start a new tree for my ancestors beginning with myself. 
1.  After entering name onto tree make a folder for that person on the computer and a physical file folder for that person so I can easily store all pertinent documents for that person 
2. Write a research plan for that person, store a digital copy in the folder on the computer and a paper copy in the physical file folder 
3. Locate all documentation I already have for that person, if already in digital form move to their folder. If I only have a paper copy of the documentation, either scan it or find a digital copy of the file online and place in the appropriate file. If I only have a digital copy, print out a paper copy and put into file folder. Goal is to have both a paper and digital copy of all important documents. 
4. Have an offsite backup copy of all files, for when computer glitches or fails. 
5.  Place paper copies of documents in the proper folder and put into the file cabinet, being sure to add the document to the inventory list at the front of the folder. 
6.  Enter the information one document at a time into the tree being sure to properly document the source of the information. 
7.  Only after I have reasonably exhausted all research on that individual, move on to the next individual.  
8. Make sure all information is correct, as well as correctly connected to the appropriate people, and that the source of information is correctly cited. 
10. Stay on top of filing. As I get each new document I need to file it away in its proper folder so things stay in order and don't get misplaced 
11. Pay special attention to Shields/Doten line so I can apply for membership in Mayflower Society 
12. Scan, label, file and share photos. 
13. Write quarterly family newsletter for Newman cousins, consider a quarterly newsletter for Busch cousins. 
14. Self-Publish a Busch family genealogy and submit to Family History Library in Salt Lake City, as well as a copy to the Modoc County Library and the Library is Sierra City, Sierra, California, in honor of my mother's work. Then work on self-publishing other lines and submit to the Family History Library and other libraries as appropriate to the family line. 
15. Join pertinent lineage/family societies, such as the Stiles Family of America and the Association of American Boyers to be able to collaborate with others researching common lines 
16. Finish outlining the Records of the Antrim Family in America book by Harriet Stockton Antrim to help me (and others) in researching that name since the book is not indexed, nor are individuals numbered in standardized genealogical fashion.
17. Write in the journal I started to record my personal life story on a regular basis so my descendants have a part of me in my own words when I am no longer around.

Do you have a list of goals for the coming year? Spend a little time thinking about it. Write them down, then break those goals into bite size babysteps that you can feel good about accomplishing. 

Let's Brainstorm Research Logs

In the Facebook group "Genealogy Do-Over" we have been chatting about doing a spreadsheet to help us track our census research. In addition, I have posted a file with a research plan worksheet for an individual (see below for pictures of a blank worksheet, feel free to adapt for your needs)... but the "form" I just can't make work for me is a research log of any sort... most printed forms just don't give enough space to write enough of anything to really track my research (unless I am totally missing the point on those logs).

Brian Langley's spreadsheet idea for the census is making me consider using a spreadsheet format for a research log... course then my question is do I use a separate "book" for each major branch (for example my sweet sixteen surnames)? and then have a sheet for research on each individual in that branch (for example in the "Newman" book a sheet for Linda D Newman, a sheet for my dad, a sheet for his dad, etc)? What columns/rows do I need on this spreadsheet? to me the problem with using a computerized spread sheet comes when I go to someplace like the FHL and I am sitting at the microfilm readers and am researching a film.... I have a 17" laptop, so can't really have that sitting open in order to add stuff to the spreadsheet as I go, a physical paper notebook or journal works better in that case where i can jot down notes.

I am totally looking to hear what has worked for others (although from some of the comments in the group it would seems I am not the only one that struggles with this). Let's brainstorm!

In preparation of the Genealogy Do-Over

In preparation for the Genealogy Do-Over I think I will re-read the book "Genealogy 101: How to Trace Your Family's History and Heritage (National Genealogical Society Guides)" by Barbara Renick, This is a really good book for beginner and for the experienced genealogist. I liked so much that I have given it as a gift to a number of people that I knew were interested in learning more about doing genealogy.

Do you have a genealogy book that you really like and recommend to others?

Genealogy Do-Over

I received an email today from Thomas MacEntee with his announcement that he was going to do a "Genealogy Do-Over." The concept intrigues me because I KNOW that so much of my early research was not properly cited. There was just so much I didn't know, and I took the word of others on some of the lines, and they sent me names, dates and places but not always sources. Plus my files are a combination of my research and research my mom had done. Not only that, when I started it was back in the days of DOS, and files didn't always transfer cleanly from DOS to windows... in fact the first FTM program I used was FTM 5.0! Needless to say the computer database is a mess, not to mention what my paper files look like....

The idea of going back and editing all the info is daunting. The idea of starting a totally new database feels much better. I can start with myself, make sure all my info is in the database and properly cited, then add my spouses, my children, my parents, my siblings, etc one by one and making sure everything is properly entered in a uniform manner and properly cited feels right... Nothing will be entered unless I have the documentation for it. If I have info with no documentation it will go in the notes section marked as speculation.

So starting January 1st I am starting fresh.... if you have been doing this for awhile is this something you need to think about doing too?