Genealogy Pointers

Researching genealogy as a professional or just as a hobby is lots of fun. You find ancestor after ancestor and if your lucky may be a story or two about their lives. But the hardest thing about genealogy is staying on track with the family line you are work on.

Here you are at your computer, you have allotted the evening for researching on your father’s direct line and before you know it you are looking at your fathers mothers sisters family tree. Then a new message comes over the genealogy message board you’re a member of and someone asks a question that you can answer.

Then a light bulb goes off, you stop, and wonder, how did you get so far away from the direct line you wanted to research and look what time it is!

This has happened to every person some time or another that has anything to do with a computer and the Internet. This is called distractions. In order to stay on task, you have to try very hard to concentrate on what you are doing and nothing else.

I have come up with some tips that you might be interested in that helps me stay focused on my genealogy line that I’m researching. I still have to refer back to them once in a while to remind myself what I’m doing and not doing.

1. Stay Focused
When I first start to research my family, I tried to do every line on my mother and father’s side. I ended up driving myself crazy. You have to stay focused on one direct line, a single-family group, or a single surname. Decide exactly what you want to work on and stay with it.

2. Stop-Organize
If you have been working on your family line for awhile now, I know you have papers, documents, notes from sources you have researched, notes from people you have talked to, records you have found, and notes of theories you have come up with. This has to all be organized together before you can move on. Stay away from the Internet until you have everything organized in an easy-to-refer-to file. While you’re at it, try to put all those little notes you have jotted down, either in one file or copy to a single sheet of paper. This is a lot easier that 20 scraps of paper.

3. Log, Log, Log
Keep a log of where you have looked, what you have found if anything, what file it is in, and the date you looked. This log is called a genealogical research log. This will help you identify gaps in your research and keep you from searching in the same place you have already searched. Plus you won’t be wasting time.

4. Plan
In order to make the most out of your precious genealogy research time, you need to have a plan. You need to review your family file and identify what you need to look for every time, before you set down to work. You can even make a ‘to do’ list right before you end your research time, that way you know right where to pick up at.

5. Distractions
Your all ready to set down and start to work, wear blinders (figurative, of course). Put all other research papers away. Have only out what you need to research what you have decided to work on. Tell family member your working for such and such time and don’t answer the phone. You can even turn the volume down on your computer so you won’t here that “you’ve got mail.”

6.Putting your Genealogy on Hold
Include a “pending” file for each of your family groups. This is an excellent way to stay organized. Each pending file holds copies of outgoing and incoming correspondence and unrecorded genealogy papers. Pending files can even contain your notes from Web site you want to look at further in detail, and information you got in the mail from a distant cousin.

When you come to a good stopping point in your research, you can go through your pending files and what goes, what stays, what needs to be recorded, any notes that this new information will effect your research plan, and any filling that needs to be done.

7. Working Notebook
I know you have walked way from your research for several days or even months. You want to get back at it but it’s hard to do. You have forgot where you were and what you were working on. The best way to solve this problem is to make a working notebook for the family group you are working on. This notebook includes a copy of your research plan, family summary, research log, and correspondence log. This will allow you to review your progress you have made and where you need to go from there. This will also help when your are at a brick wall with one family line so you decide to work on another family line but unexpectedly a break through comes with the brick wall line.

When people see my filling system they are surprised. They think filing papers and records is all there is to it but us genealogist know there is much more than that. If you plan where you are going and keep track of where you have been your family research will be fun and effective.