Sunday, June 14, 2015

Organization

I am taking a short respite from by blog while I organize my documents.  Why you ask?  Well....

I realized when I spent over 12 hours writing this post about Perry Eneau that I did not have all my ducks (uh...docs) in a row.  I had to look in several places to find the different pieces of information that is referred to in that post.  I now have all that information together, despite the fact that some of that information may be tossed out as I work through that brick wall - although, I have worked with that information for about 5 years and still have not come to any conclusions.  I know there is a missing piece of information that I will find someday that will make all that information come together and my brick wall will tumble!  How I look forward to that day!!

I have spoken before about the fact that I absolutely love to read.  I read two (2) genealogy magazines (Internet Genealogy and Family Tree Magazine) as well as History Magazine.  History Magazine provides me with information about Military Conflicts, Weather Disasters, Heroes and Heroines, Villains and Outlaws, and much more that I can then relate to my ancestors during their lifetime. With each magazine, I mark articles as I read them that have information which I may need later (websites, international research, etc.) and I then tear those articles out and throw away the rest of the magazine.  Those articles are then separated according to content and placed in a page protector which is then placed into a binder.  I have binders for: International Research, State/City Research, Specific Record Categories (Census, Obituary, Church, Land, Military, etc.), History Articles, Specific Website Tutorials, and the last one has miscellaneous articles broke down by category (organization, photo identification, social media/apps, etc.).

I also use binders for my genealogy research.  I have a binder for my proven family members and another for my possible family members.  Once I find a document that confirms their relationship, those documents are then moved into my proven family member's binder.  Despite the number of years I have been conducting research, I only have up to some of my great-grandparents confirmed. Many people have hundreds of names by now, but I want to be careful and make sure my family really is my family and not people that others have linked to my family with no proven sources. There are too many stories out there of unconfirmed family members and I started this research wanting no part of that.  I don't want living family members "thinking" they are related to someone just because I decided to take the word of someone else, instead of finding the information that would prove/disprove that family relationship.

I want to include a Family Record Sheet for each family, as well as a Research Log for each person. That way, I will have information at the touch of a finger for everyone who is related to each other and how they are related, as well as a log for each person showing the searches I perform and whether or not I am successful in finding anything.  I also want to keep a running list of the documents/information that I need to find in order to provide more information about each ancestors life.

Please bear with me as I find a place for everything and put everything in it's place.  Who knows if I will get the entire task completed, but I hope to get the majority of it done so I can concentrate most of my time and energy on what I love doing most - "Searching For Ancestors"!!

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