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| Français : Jeanne Calment's birth certificate (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
GENEALOGY RESEARCH RESOLUTIONS FOR 2014
So maybe it’s time to make a real, honest to goodness, I’m-going-to-do-it-this-time, genealogical resolution. Great! Now where do we start? That’s the hardest question to ask yourself most of the time. In other words, what are your priorities? It’s a new year, so maybe it’s a good time to decide the absolutely most important project that you’ve dreaded and, as a result, put off for weeks or maybe months.
It could be a result of what I’d call “pin-ball research”. You know how that works. You finally find the census record for your great uncle who lived in a small town in West Virginia. But before you get a chance to transcribe those precious tidbits of information, you happen to notice another family that sounds familiar. So off you go, checking out a family that has nothing to do with your great uncle. But it’s really interesting! So you start tracking the “interesting” family---“I won’t forget to get back to Uncle Whatever”---then you find a newspaper article from the depression era that has a very pitiful story that you can’t take your eyes off. And then... “How’d I get here?” Here’s a suggestion: Finish Uncle Whatever, but make notes on what it was that ALMOST distracted you so you can get back to that later.
It’s a matter of discipline and focus. If you’re like most folks, it’s hard to be strictly disciplined with regard to scheduling a regular time to tend to your research. Life has a tendency to interfere! But we’re not talking about punching a time clock here; we’re just trying to put aside a block of time and when that time is over, it’s over! There’s another day with another block of time to deal with another priority.
If you’re like me, you have a gazillion projects with twice as many sticky notes and pads of paper with “important” stuff. I know that I need to set aside some time to sort through it all, save what needs to be saved and toss anything that’s just been hanging around too long, making that big pile on my desk look too daunting to tackle. I've done it before and it is past the time to do it again. I know that I always feel better and I ALWAYS find notes and folders and whatnot that I've been hunting for.
To sum it all up, resolve to clear the decks, organize, file, purge and prioritize. It’s always easier to work when your head is clear and your goals are clearer. Tackle one project and one element of that project at a time. Track you progress with research notes describing where you've been so that you don’t have to retrace your steps weeks down the road. You won’t be fretting about whether you did this or that because you've written down the steps you've taken with each project.
Coming up: What can we do now that a new law has privatized the Social Security Death Index which has always been a valuable research tool?
I do my research in fits and starts, I think is the saying. I'll dig in and work on my project in my spare time for a week or so and then other things move to the top of my priority list.
ReplyDeleteMy family sees me as the family historian so I feel a certain responsability to keep things moving. I really want to get some things ironed out and discovered while my parents are alive, but it is difficult to keep working the leads all the time.
My focus right now is Alsace and Galway Ireland. I hear there is a directory of Alsacian emmigratin but I have never seen it. Have you heard of this record before?
My first comment would be to strongly suggest that you "interview" your parents. Put together a list of questions in advance so that the conversation doesn't drift away from the family information you want to gather. I teach a class on family interviews and hand out a list of questions. I'll see if I can post it here somehow. And the biggest part of that interview: RECORD IT!! Whether you use audio or audio with video at least use a means that avoids relying on your memory.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, although I 've never heard of the book to which you refer, here's a link to Amazon.com where it is for sale: Amazon
Look for the interview document....As I type this, I realized that I can put it into Dropbox. So, here's the link to that! "Interviewing Relatives"
Good luck!
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