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!

Yes, I am still alive

Since it has been so long since I have actually posted on my blog some of you might have been wondering where I have been and what I have been doing.

First I now have a new website that I have been working on. It isn't done but it is online. The URL is: http://cawildflowr.wix.com/linda-family-tree. Come check it out, feel free to leave a message. One on the nice things about using Wix for my webpage is that I am able to link this blog to my webpage so that people can read the blog right from the webpage. That means you only need to bookmark my webpage to be able to see the webpage AND my blog!

This has been a rather tough week or so for family health news. A first cousin once removed on my maternal line has been diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, she is only eleven years old. Prayers for her and the family are greatly appreciated. A GoFundMe account has been set up to help with medical expenses: Prayers For Gracie.

On the other side of my family one of my cousins received the report back from his biopsy and it is Pancreatic Cancer. This is what my mom died of so it was devastating to hear this. Not only for my cousin's sake, but because it stirred up all the memories of what we went through with my mom. Prayers are greatly appreciated for him and his family. He has a sister that has been battling cancer for a number of years and last I heard had been given a year. If that proves true this may be an extremely tough year for our family.

Another cousin on this side of the family sent me an email this past week saying that he had had a heart attack while he was out at the mall three weeks ago. He says it was a good thing it happened while he was out and about because if it had happened while he was home he probably would not have survived it since he lives alone. He is home now and hopefully follows doctors orders so we can have him around for many more years.

With all this new family health news I am making sure I am updating my list to take to my doctor so he can include it in my file. Have you written your Family Health History for your medical provider? Prevention is usually more effective than trying to repair the damage, and our doctors are better able to know what to look for if they know our family health history. Don't put it off, write that list today.

Then there are my own personal health struggles. Fortunately nothing as major as cancer or heart attacks, but they still interfere with what I want to be doing. I still have to deal daily with the limitations that my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and Fibromyalgia (FM) put on me. Then I am scheduled to have the rest of my teeth pulled because I had no dental insurance for six years to take care of problems when they were small, now it means pulling them and getting dentures. After that is taken care of I will go back to the Orthopedic Dr and talk about joint replacements, probably starting with my right knee. Then to top it off the eye doctor told me last week that he could probably justify doing cataract surgery. Like the Garth Brook song says "Lord I’m much too young to feel this damn old" after all I am only 57!

But hopefully when those issues are taken care of my general health will improve and I can do more of the things I love and want to be doing. No it won't cure the CFS or the FM, but with less stress on my body due to these other issues maybe the symptoms will be less severe.

In the meantime I have started playing around with Genome Mate Pro which allows you to download data from the different DNA Testing Companies and puts it into one database on your computer. This allows you to track your matches, compare matches and try to find the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) by triangulating people who share dna with each other on the same chromosome segments. It also allows you to have multiple profiles within Genome Mate Pro so that if you manage tests for yourself AND other family members you can keep track of everything within one program.

So, I am learning about how to use Genome Mate Pro, the Chrome Browser extension AncestryDNA Helper , the Chrome Browser 529andYou (used for gathering data from 23andMe matches) and will also be learning about the program DNAGedCom

I had played with the older version of Genome Mate but there were limitations on how much data could be stored. If you used the old version or have never tried this program I urge you to consider doing so. There is a Facebook group for those who might want to talk with others about their experience using it.

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.

New Facebook Group for Busch Researchers

Announcing a new Facebook Group for those who have a Busch Line on their Family Tree. Please join us in helping each other find our Busch ancestors and connecting with our Busch Cousins!

New Facebook Group for Antrim Researchers

Announcing a new Facebook Group for those who have an Antrim Line on their Family Tree. Please join us in helping each other find our Antrim ancestors and connecting with our Antrim Cousins!

New Facebook Group for Boyer Researchers

Announcing a new Facebook Group for those who have a Boyer Line on their Family Tree. Please join us in helping each other find our Boyer ancestors and connecting with our Boyer Cousins!