And Away We Go!
A
couple of weeks ago Thomas MacEntee, a well-known genealogy blogger, webinar
presenter, researcher, and all-around nice guy, posted his Genealogy “Do-Over”
idea for his own genealogy on Facebook.
The write-up included something about correcting his mistakes. “Hm,” I thought. “Now what mistakes can he have made in his
own research. If Thomas MacEntee can
make mistakes, how bad are the mistakes I’ve made over the years.” He created a Facebook group and now has a
following of 1,000+ fellow genealogists
who are ready to start over, and do it right.
The start date for this new project is today--January 2, 2015. Patience has never been one of my virtues, so
I started dabbling with my do-over on Saturday evening, December 27, 2014.
My
genealogy database program of choice has been Legacy Family tree over the past
3+ years. While I’m not deleting my old
database (yet), I did start a new one, which I titled “Alice’s do-over
2015.” At the same time, I am (finally)
going to implement Mary Hill’s color coded system for organizing your genealogy
files, which I collected all the supplies for over the past couple of years
I
made my first entry in my do-over file in Legacy—me. Before that, though, I culled from my paper
files a copy of my birth certificate and that of my older brother, plus his
death certificate (he only lived 2 days after birth). I did not find my younger brother’s birth
certificate, so I’m hoping he has it and that I can get a copy for my
files. I do have his birth recorded in
his baby book by our mother, which for some reason I have, along with my
own. I do not want to enter anything
into my new, clean file that does not have a source.
Yesterday,
(January 1st), I did a little more work on my “do-over.” I do not have a birth certificate for my
father, who was born in Germany in 1907.
His birth date on my birth certificate is correct, but his birth place
is not. Every document I have where he
provided the information says he was born in Nebraska. However, I do have documentation for his
correct birth place. I have a copy of
the ship’s manifest showing his arrival in the US in 1908 with his parents and
older brothers. I have a copy of his
mother’s passport application when she was trying to get herself and her
children out of Germany where they were visiting, and back to the US a scant
week or so after WWI broke out in Europe.
This application gives her birth date and place, as well as that of her
three sons. Ka-ching! Best I can hope for, for the time being,
unless and until I can uncover some church records for this family in the part
of Germany that is now Poland.
I
created a “do-over” folder in My Documents, and have created a sub-folder
within this one for my father, mother, & us kids. I have moved documents over to this
sub-folder that were on my hard drive. I
have moved paper documents that I already had (except my mother’s birth
certificate), to a crisp new manila folder which resides in the crisp new
“blue” folder for my paternal grandparents.
I need to dig my mother’s birth certificate out of her surname (before
marriage) folder so I can reference it and make a note in the files that her
birth certificate is in that location.
Pull a few more miscellaneous documents into the proper folders and
VOILA! One family completed, with
sources noted and in place in my digital files as well as paper ones. Other sub-folders will be created as I go.
~~
Week
1 (January 2-8) Topics
1.
Setting
previous research aside
For
as far as I’ve gotten thus far with just my father’s family, this is not a
difficult task, because the only known descendants in this line are myself and
children, grandchildren; my brother (no children); and a cousin who is about 20
years older than me who is probably gone by now, and who I’ve been told has two
children. This is a shame, because all my life I wondered why I had never met
her (aside from the fact that my parents divorced when I was 7 or 8), and it
wasn’t until fairly recently that I learned she was married about 6 months
after I was born. The third brother, as
far as I know, never married or had children.
So I don’t have much in the way of research for them, anyway. However, I’ve used the “shotgun” approach on many
of my other families, so I will be shuffling through file folders (dozens of
them) and jettisoning a lot of stuff that isn’t doing to fit in with this
do-over.
2.
Preparing
to research
Part
of preparing to research includes knowing what it is you need to look for, and
the other part would be knowing *where* to look. What research tools and tactics do I already
use? Do they produce results? Is there anything else I could be doing in this
area to improve my results? One thing I
know I lack is using some basic tools like to-do lists and research logs. There’s nothing like the thrill of
discovering all these family records online, taking time to save them to the
files, then discovering that just a scant 6 (or less) months before, you
already found this information and saved it to your files. That was several hours of wasted time that
could have been spent on another family.
So part of my preparation is going to be making to-do lists, remembering
to check off and make notes about the results, and to keep a research log
listing where I have searched, and whether or not I found anything of value.
3.
Establishing base practices and guidelines
This
is sort of related (for me, anyway) to topic #2, above. I need to get in a habit of using a to-do
list. More than that, I need to get in
the habit of using a research log, and especially noting whether or not I found
anything in one of the record sets I researched. And I need to get in the habit of noting
sources. I’ve gotten in the habit of doing this over the past year or so with
new research I’ve done and entered into Legacy, but I have a database full of
people which I’m setting aside for this exercise, most of whom I have not noted
sources for, even when I have them.
This
is it for now. More later!
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