Waaaaay back in
August 2014, I read some other blogs that mentioned 52 Ancestors in 52
weeks. So I revived my old FWPL blog to
do that with a focus on ancestors that have had short histories that may not be
heard otherwise - those who died young, never married, etc
Well I wasn't able
to keep that up because I got a little depressed with that; and, more
importantly it was becoming too stressful.
I was starting to miss posting because I was caught up in working on
another aspect of my tree and family research then needing to stop to think of
a post. I was also having trouble
picking an ancestor because I wanted to share from all sides of my family; and,
I didn't have 'a grip' on my ancestors which was due to poor organization. So, I started to read genealogy blogs and
forums that led to my organizing system which is working great (but also took
my focus away from blogging). Then, on
Friday, I watched a google hangout presentation, that DearMyrtle hosted (I
watched via a Genea-musings post), about Organizing in 12 weeks.
In her presentation,
one of her points was that we often forget to document ourselves. For the new focus of my blog I thought I
would document myself and share part of my system. Another point she made was that we often
spend time looking for records and documents of past generations and forget to
document the ones closest to us. So the
new direction will be include my preservation/memorial efforts; documenting
myself (a little); and showcasing my ancestors through photographs and broader
topics than 1 person at a time.
Preservation/Memorial
I use findagrave.com
as a great research tool and source for clues.
Amazingly, I never thought to make a memorial page for my own parents
and brother. Who better to do this than
me? Why did it take so long to think of
it? Thank you DearMyrtle. Here is my first memorial and it is for my
mother, Dixie Harris Heath.
Dixie
Heath
Documenting Myself
For my filing
management, trying to get a grip on my ancestors, I have chosen to use OneNote
and, like I said, started looking on the web for ideas. There are lots of ideas for organizing
genealogy; lots for using Evernote; but hardly anything for OneNote - other
than use it like a notebook. Duh. But every family researcher has a system that
is as different as it is the same as everyone else. I had seen some of DearMrytle's organizing
information before which helped a lot with my system. Below are my the The most important thing
they did was get me to stop and think what I really wanted to do.
First, I want to be
as digital with my information as possible.
Second, I use my flash drive a lot, and as a back up, so it needs to be
mirrored with OneNote. Third, and finally,
I am not a certified genealogist - I want my research to be available for my
family and accurate but I to take the
pressure off from having research logs, document numbers and the like. So the most important thing I did was the one
formal thing that every professional recommended - I made a numbered list of my
family tree (ahnentafel). The second was
to create a master index of my system which OneNote lets me create link to the
section from it. So here is part one -
OneNote
One
binder, named History of Family, which has
five notebooks that have a varied number of section groups and each has
sections that are broken into pages.
The notebooks are:
0 Start Here
1 Paternal
2 Maternal
3 DNA
4 Ancestry working files/trees
So here is the first
part of the index-
0 Start Here Section
Purpose is to be
point from which research is decided; it is to have the Ahnentafel in groups
and generations to help guide research; it is, also, to have basic tools,
ideas, notes and resources
Section 1: Start Here - End
Here
Page 1: Master Index
Page
2: To Do
Page
3: Instructions - how I set up something
so I don't re-invent wheels
Page
4: Simple Ahnentafel - just the numbers
and names
Page 5: Ahnentafel +
Family Groups - Generations 1-3
subpage
1: Generation 4
subpage
2: Generation 5
subpage
3: Generation 6 - Paternal
subpage
4: Generation 7 - Maternal
Page
6: familysearch.org Numbers
Page
7: Completed To Do - not everyday things
but large project to have for review
Page
8: Jottings
Section 2: Timelines
Page
1: How To make timeline using Microsoft
Excel
Page
2: Kathleen Heath timeline
Section 3: Basic Tools
Page
1: First Steps
Page
2: Organization
Page
3: Source Documentation
Page
4: Toolbox
Page
5: Tree Template
Page
6: Family Template
Page
7: Checklist Template
Section 4: Geographic
Page
1: Gibson county, TN
Page
2: Rutherford county, TN
Page
3: County Maps
Section 5: Sources
Page
1: Notes
Page
2: Gibson, TN Census
Section 6: Working
Ideas
Section 7: Blog:
Section 8:
Preservation-Memorial
Group 2: Heather's
Tree
As you can see the
last sections still need some work but good filing system is able to be
flexible.
Thanks for
listening!
