Category: Genealogy Do-Over

This series of posts are based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂 I just want to say there are parts of this workbook that I am not posting about, so if you would like the full set of tasks, then visit Thomas’ page or purchase the workbook.

This week, I have been taking a little bit of a break from my genealogy. It was partially to do with the holiday and partially because I just needed a little break from it. Throughout the past month or so, I have been working on one of the month five tasks of the Genealogy Do-Over. That is to build a Genealogy Toolbox. I know this toolbox will continue to evolve, so I know I am not looking to “finish” it anytime soon. It’s nice to have everything I might need in one place though. I will just go over the categories I am using right now.

Calculators: All genealogists need calculators. There always seems to be some kind of math needing to be done and I don’t like to hunt around looking for how to do some of those calculations. So I have a calculator folder. Right now, there are only a few links in it, but I don’t really know which calculators I will need until I am researching again.

DNA Websites: I’ve got all the DNA websites at the click of a mouse.

Education: I had a more extensive list of Genealogy Education links at one point but have lost them. Lucky for me I know that DearMYRTLE and her Cousin Russ did a hangout on this very topic, so I plan to re-watch that and rebuild this list!

Locality Resources: These are for the smaller, local websites that I like to use. Sometimes it is just a county or cemetery website. These links don’t fit into my other categories.

Reference Materials: My biggest section! In the main folder I have one link, the CDC page on Where to Write for Vital Records. Then I have subcategories for Analysis, Guides, Historic Terms and Link Websites. There are links to Cyndi’s List, the FamilySearch Wiki, WorldCat, Evidence Explained and many more in this section.

Search Websites: This the second biggest category. It’s for the actual search websites. This one might seem like the biggest at first because it has more subcategories. It’s not though, it probably has less links than my Reference Materials category. I don’t know though because I haven’t counted. I do know that I use the reference section a lot more than the search section right now. As you can see in my screen shot, there are categories for the big sites (Ancestry, FindMyPast, FamilySearch, etc), cemetery sites (Find a Grave, BillionGraves), Germany, less used sites, Maryland (mdlandrec.net), New Jersey (State Archives), Ohio. You get the picture, this is for the more “official” locality websites and then the big search websites.

Societies: This is where I am keeping a list of the societies in my local area, the areas where my ancestors lived, and other miscellaneous societies I thought I would need.

Conferences: I haven’t been to a genealogy conference yet, but I am actively researching them. Right now the only link here is Rootstech because I’d love to go to that one day.

Shopping: Right now there is only one link here and I moved my Archival Supplies category into this folder. I have been watching the webinar series given by Melissa Barker over at Legacy Family Tree Webinars. She gives lots of great information on how to archive your documents. She is an archivist so I’m definitely taking lots of notes. Including the websites she recommends to use for purchasing the right supplies.

You might be asking why I didn’t give a more detailed list, well that’s because I am putting the whole list up on this website! It can be found under the My Tools heading in the menu bar or by clicking this link. Feel free to bookmark it if you wish. Just remember that it will be constantly evolving. 🙂

Other Posts in this series:

• Genealogy Do-Over or Go-Over?
• Genealogy Go-Over: Getting Started
• Genealogy Go-Over: Setting Guidelines
• Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over
• Genealogy Do-Over: Where I’m At
• Genealogy Do-Over: More Decisions
• Genealogy Do-Over: More Prep Work
• Genealogy D0-Over: My Research Toolbox <- You are here

Source List:

1. Thomas MacEntee, The Genealogy Do-Over Workbook (Kindle Edition);GeneaBloggers (http://www.geneabloggers.com : downloaded 31 December 2015), Month 5.

This series of posts are based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂 I just want to say there are parts of this workbook that I am not posting about, so if you would like the full set of tasks, then visit Thomas’ page or purchase the workbook.

This week, I have been taking a little bit of a break from my genealogy. It was partially to do with the holiday and partially because I just needed a little break from it. Throughout the past month or so, I have been working on one of the month five tasks of the Genealogy Do-Over. That is to build a Genealogy Toolbox. I know this toolbox will continue to evolve, so I know I am not looking to “finish” it anytime soon. It’s nice to have everything I might need in one place though. I will just go over the categories I am using right now.

Calculators: All genealogists need calculators. There always seems to be some kind of math needing to be done and I don’t like to hunt around looking for how to do some of those calculations. So I have a calculator folder. Right now, there are only a few links in it, but I don’t really know which calculators I will need until I am researching again.

DNA Websites: I’ve got all the DNA websites at the click of a mouse.

Education: I had a more extensive list of Genealogy Education links at one point but have lost them. Lucky for me I know that DearMYRTLE and her Cousin Russ did a hangout on this very topic, so I plan to re-watch that and rebuild this list!

Locality Resources: These are for the smaller, local websites that I like to use. Sometimes it is just a county or cemetery website. These links don’t fit into my other categories.

Reference Materials: My biggest section! In the main folder I have one link, the CDC page on Where to Write for Vital Records. Then I have subcategories for Analysis, Guides, Historic Terms and Link Websites. There are links to Cyndi’s List, the FamilySearch Wiki, WorldCat, Evidence Explained and many more in this section.

Search Websites: This the second biggest category. It’s for the actual search websites. This one might seem like the biggest at first because it has more subcategories. It’s not though, it probably has less links than my Reference Materials category. I don’t know though because I haven’t counted. I do know that I use the reference section a lot more than the search section right now. As you can see in my screen shot, there are categories for the big sites (Ancestry, FindMyPast, FamilySearch, etc), cemetery sites (Find a Grave, BillionGraves), Germany, less used sites, Maryland (mdlandrec.net), New Jersey (State Archives), Ohio. You get the picture, this is for the more “official” locality websites and then the big search websites.

Societies: This is where I am keeping a list of the societies in my local area, the areas where my ancestors lived, and other miscellaneous societies I thought I would need.

Conferences: I haven’t been to a genealogy conference yet, but I am actively researching them. Right now the only link here is Rootstech because I’d love to go to that one day.

Shopping: Right now there is only one link here and I moved my Archival Supplies category into this folder. I have been watching the webinar series given by Melissa Barker over at Legacy Family Tree Webinars. She gives lots of great information on how to archive your documents. She is an archivist so I’m definitely taking lots of notes. Including the websites she recommends to use for purchasing the right supplies.

You might be asking why I didn’t give a more detailed list, well that’s because I am putting the whole list up on this website! It can be found under the My Tools heading in the menu bar or by clicking this link. Feel free to bookmark it if you wish. Just remember that it will be constantly evolving. 🙂

Other Posts in this series:

• Genealogy Do-Over or Go-Over?
• Genealogy Go-Over: Getting Started
• Genealogy Go-Over: Setting Guidelines
• Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over
• Genealogy Do-Over: Where I’m At
• Genealogy Do-Over: More Decisions
• Genealogy Do-Over: More Prep Work
• Genealogy D0-Over: My Research Toolbox <- You are here

Source List:

1. Thomas MacEntee, The Genealogy Do-Over Workbook (Kindle Edition);GeneaBloggers (http://www.geneabloggers.com : downloaded 31 December 2015), Month 5.

This series of posts are based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂

First things first, I finally cleaned off my desk the best I could.

I will probably clean off all that stuff on the left eventually, but I need to get some more storage solutions for that. I cleaned off a ton of different books and papers. Only things I will need as I work are on the desk. This has probably been one of the most helpful things I’ve done. I’ve already noticed that I am a lot more focused than I’ve been in the past.

The other thing I did was I decided I wanted to overhaul my bookmarks. They’ve been a mess for years and I was so hesitant about it for about 5 minutes. Then I decided I would just clean out my Google Chrome bookmarks and start fresh. It’s amazing how much easier it gets to start fresh.

The fun part is I am still building that Toolbox and adding to my Genealogy bookmarks almost two weeks after I started fresh. This has also been a HUGE help in keeping me focused. I took off bookmarks to all my news, celebrity, and other time-wasting websites… Except Facebook because I use it daily to help my research. I have found that I don’t even miss those sites. If I get the urge, I just go ahead and type the address manually. I have found that if I have to go to the effort of typing it in, I don’t bother to go. That probably makes me sound very lazy!

Last but not least, is the research log. Sorry for the blurs, but I’m sure you understand. I am using a template that was generously shared by Thomas MacEntee. I have tweaked it a bit to help me use the filters feature more effectively, because I do love the filters feature. I am still trying to decide if I will be keeping just one log or doing one for each surname. Right now, I think I am leaning toward one for each surname but I just can’t decide yet. I figure I can always copy and paste later into a new file if it becomes too much to handle. I will fill you in on the research log more when I start adding in someone I don’t have to worry about privacy blurs with. Right now I am still working on adding in my living relatives.

Other posts in this series:

1. Genealogy Do-Over or Go-Over?
2. Genealogy Go-Over: Getting Started
3. Genealogy Go-Over: Setting Guidelines
4. Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over
5. Genealogy Do-Over: Where I’m At
6. Genealogy Do-Over: More Decisions
7. Genealogy Do-Over: More Prep Work <- You are here.
8. Genealogy Do-Over: My Research Toolbox

Sources:

1. Thomas MacEntee, The Genealogy Do-Over Workbook (Kindle Edition);GeneaBloggers (http://www.geneabloggers.com : downloaded 31 December 2015), Month 4.

The series of posts I will be writing is based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂

I have been ill for that last few days and after a lot of rest, I am finally feeling better! This means I am so far behind in all the tasks I had set myself up for this week. That’s alright though, there’s nothing like a little rest to help you get a clearer thought process!

Here are the things I’m working on this week.

1. Setting up a Research Log

I am still looking into the best way to set this up for my research. The hard part is figuring out what will work best for my research when I’m not currently researching. This will most likely change plenty as I go along but I’m probably going to start adding in responses from my form and my cousin’s information to help me get the log going. I will let you guys know what that looks like as soon as I figure it out myself!

If anyone has some research log tips, I’d love to hear them!

2. Digital Organization

The second that I decided I was going to open an empty Legacy Family Tree file, I created a problem for myself. Was I going to keep my current organization method or change it? Was I going to keep my current file name method or change it? The answer is I don’t know. I did a previous write-up on my working digital organization. That was working well for me, except for the OneNote part where I never really got it up and functional. I still want to do something with OneNote, I just don’t know how. The more I read from other researchers, the more I take in what they are doing and see that I could be more efficient in other ways.

PROs to changing my system

• I really like the way people use a surname to separate their files. Mine is currently setup by record. If I were to organize it by surname, I wouldn’t have to flip through folders when working on just one ancestor.
• Starting fresh and re-organizing everything will help me make sure I have every record entered and analyzed for each person.
• I would better be able to see which records I am missing for each person.
• Using an alphabetical system might be easier to navigate than the random numbering sequence I had used before.
• Greater ability to keep family groups together. You can tell from my screenshot that before everything was sorted by number. That number was given as a person was entered into my program. That means records for one family group could be thousands of records apart. If I switch to a surname based system, it would be easier to group families together.

CONs to changing my system

• I am really used to my current system and changing could cause me a lot of confusion.
• My numbering system is going bye-bye. It would be too hard of a process to try to keep the numbers the same. This means renaming every single digital file. (This is not necessarily a bad thing.)

I have some more things I’m working through but not quite ready to blog about yet, so you can be sure I’ll be back once I do. I’m sure hoping that when I decide what to do this time it is for the final time! I hope you all are doing great in your research endeavors. 🙂

Other posts in this series:

1. Genealogy Do-Over or Go-Over?
2. Genealogy Go-Over: Getting Started
3. Genealogy Go-Over: Setting Guidelines
4. Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over
5. Genealogy Do-Over: Where I’m At
6. Genealogy Do-Over: More Decisions <- You are here.
7. Genealogy Do-Over: More Prep Work
8. Genealogy Do-Over: My Research Toolbox

Sources:

1. Thomas MacEntee, The Genealogy Do-Over Workbook (Kindle Edition);GeneaBloggers (http://www.geneabloggers.com : downloaded 31 December 2015), Month 2 and Month 4.

The series of posts I will be writing is based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂

I am still working behind the scenes on a bunch of different tasks for my Genealogy Do-Over.

Most of my immediate family members had previously provided me with their vital information. My form will hopefully help to bring in some cousin connections a little further out from what I previously knew. That doesn’t get me the stories though. Then I had a really great thought while going through the really great tips the members of the Genealogy Do-Over Facebook group gave me. In our shed we have one of those binder machines like this:

Image used from a listing on Amazon.com

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of that little machine and I finally sparked an idea about how to get some of the stories down.

I’m in the process of using a bunch of different interview suggestions from Legacy Family Tree and making a book to send to each one of my Aunts, my Uncles, my Cousins, my Parents, and hopefully my Great-Aunt too. I’ll probably even fill one out for myself.

The other thing I am working on in the background is my research goals. I wasn’t sure how to go about this but again, the Genealogy Do-Over community was a big help. In the files, the author Thomas MacEntee shared an example of his research goals and it absolutely clicked for me. The way I am going about this now will help me to stay accountable for each fact. I think it will even better track my research. The best part is, it’s a Word document on my computer and I can always edit it.

Sorry for all the blurs, but most of the people in my research goals are my living cousins. What I really like is that by using the headings settings in Word, I can collapse each person when I’m not working with them. When I am working with William Lawrence Moore, I will be able to assess him deeper and add in Prove his land ownership or Prove his occupation. I really believe this will help me out tremendously!

Thanks for sticking with me through this transition period!

Other posts in this series:

1. Genealogy Do-Over or Go-Over?
2. Genealogy Go-Over: Getting Started
3. Genealogy Go-Over: Setting Guidelines
4. Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over
5. Genealogy Do-Over: Where I’m At <- You are here.
6. Genealogy Do-Over: More Decisions
7. Genealogy Do-Over: More Prep Work
8. Genealogy Do-Over: My Research Toolbox

Sources:

1. Thomas MacEntee, The Genealogy Do-Over Workbook (Kindle Edition);GeneaBloggers (http://www.geneabloggers.com : downloaded 31 December 2015), Month 2 and Month 3
2. Microsoft Word, but you could use Google Drive.

Disclaimer: There is one link to the Amazon product I talked about and one link to Thomas MacEntee’s book page. The links I provided are not affiliate links and I receive no compensation for sending you to the websites. Once you leave this website, I have no connection to any products or services you might purchase.